As long as we’re indulging in rampant fantasies – Cubs in the World Series; Trump in the White House – why not let the imagination run riot as Breeders’ Cup week at Keeneland begins? Why not wonder aloud what might have happened had the two finest mares of the young 21st century met at the top of the Breeders’ Cup mountain in the fullness of their 5-year-old form?

On Oct. 31, Beholder will try to do what only Zenyatta has done before. She will try to beat the boys in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a stunt so daring it has been tried only six times in 30-plus years.

Ageless will not run in the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Oct. 31 at Keeneland, trainer Arnaud Delacour said on Friday.

She is the second known defection from the oversubscribed race. Obviously is passing the Turf Sprint in favor of the Breeders’ Cup Mile, according to his trainer, Phil D’Amato. Both horses were listed in the body of the field when pre-entries were announced Wednesday, and their defections open up spots for the next two horses on the selection committee preference list, Marchman and Stacked Deck.

Trainer Todd Pletcher intended to keep Rachel’s Valentina to her normal routine by working the Grade 1-winning 2-year-old filly in company – and, on paper, he did just that. But the regally bred Rachel’s Valentina, among the favorites for next week’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, turned the move into a solo exhibition.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Owner-trainer Wesley Ward said that Frankie Dettori will replace Mike Smith as the jockey aboard Judy the Beauty in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

Judy the Beauty, now 6, ran second to Groupie Doll in the 2013 Filly and Mare Sprint with Luis Saez riding and won the 2014 running with Smith up, both at Santa Anita.

“Frankie and I have just been so lucky together I thought I’d give this a try,” said Ward at Keeneland. “He’s got the magic touch, at least for me.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – This past Wednesday, upon the official release of the Breeders’ Cup pre-entries, eager handicappers and horsemen began analyzing past performances and other statistics in preparation for the two-day Breeders’ Cup.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It’s a seasonal and sunny mid-October day at Keeneland Racecourse, and Bob Elliston, chief operating officer of the Breeders’ Cup, is leaning on the rail of a newly built viewing platform on a grassy area outside the track’s final turn. As if appearing out of thin air, seven horses glide by, nearly noiseless, hugging the inside rail. Keeneland’s grandstand, a good quarter-mile in the distance, is too far away to hear a thing, even though a decent Wednesday crowd is jammed on the apron and anxiously waiting for the horses in the first race to gear up for the final drive.

Time doesn’t just fly. It disappears, leaving only traces of the past as delicate, windswept footprints on the memory.

Fortunately, there are a few of the most significant moments in the history of Thoroughbred racing marked forever by solid pieces of remembrance. One of them will be celebrated on Tuesday of Breeders’ Cup week at the Kentucky Horse Park, just north of Lexington, when a bronze statue of Cigar and Jerry Bailey winning the 1995 Breeders’ Cup Classic will be unveiled.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Just like the weather, things are beginning to heat up during training hours at Keeneland with the Breeders’ Cup now just about a week away.

The temperature was approaching 60 degrees when the main track opened for business at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, and it was a half-hour later when trainer Todd Pletcher sent out the first of his five Breeders’ Cup workers. As they have been for the past week, the skies were clear and the track fast, perhaps even a bit on the glib side, as training on the turf course remained closed for Breeders’ Cup workers until Sunday.

Let’s take a snapshot of the Breeders’ Cup pre-entry class of 2015:

There are exactly 200 individual horses pre-entered for the 13 Cup races Oct. 30-31, an average of 15.38 per race. They have combined to make 2,341 career starts and have won 883 of them, a 37.7 percent victory rate.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Fellowship, the winner of the $500,000 In Reality division of the Florida Sire Stakes, was relegated to four deep on the preference list for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The race drew 19 pre-entrants. Only 14 can run.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2015: Pre-entered horses, odds, comments, and videos