ELMONT, N.Y. – A new running style has turned Red Rifle into a new horse, and now there may be a serious new North American-based threat for the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Red Rifle will get a chance to earn an all-expenses paid berth into the Turf when he runs in Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park.
The Breeders’ Cup will reduce the minimum for the two pick six wagers scheduled for its Oct. 30 and Oct. 31 cards at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., from $2 to $1, according to officials who have seen the simulcast contracts the organization has sent out to wagering sites.
The reduction in the minimum for the bet is the first since 1994, when the Breeders’ Cup reduced the minimum to $1 for a three-year span running through 1996. Handle on the bet dropped considerably during the three-year period, and handle immediately rebounded when the minimum was increased to $2 in 1997.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The brilliance Songbird showed in going unbeaten in two starts in sprints at Del Mar this summer provided a foundation for a different assignment on Saturday – a start at 1 1/16 miles in the $300,000 Chandelier Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Santa Anita.
There may be little suspense to the outcome.
“She can run long,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said on Thursday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 1, $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita is a Win and You’re In race toward the Breeders’ Cup Classic. For Bayern, the race is pretty much Win or Go Home.
Bayern won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, but his four starts this year have been gross disappointments. Twice he has finished last, he beat just one horse another time, and in his best performance, he finished third. It’s an ugly ledger for a horse who after last year’s Classic was the front-runner for Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male.
Last week, the question was whether Frosted could fire his best shot in the Pennsylvania Derby on short rest for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin and Godolphin. He did. This week, we’ll find out if Wedding Toast can come out shooting off a 16-week break for the same connections in the Grade 1 Beldame. She’ll be favored to win the 1 1/8-mile race for fillies and mares.
Wedding Toast has an affinity for Belmont Park, where she is 4 for 5. During the spring meet, she dominated both the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps and the Grade 2 Ruffian.
With each looking to earn a trip to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, 10 2-year-olds will clash Saturday in the Grade 3, $200,000 Pilgrim Stakes.
Scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf, the 37th running of the Pilgrim is the eighth of 11 races and the first leg of a $300,000-guaranteed late pick four. Post time is 4:51 p.m. Eastern.
ARCADIA, Calif. – One thing trainer Richard Mandella never has seen in horse racing is a slam dunk.
“I haven’t found any automatics,” he said. “[Stuff] happens. I am never going to say it’s easy.”
Beholder makes it look easy, though, and she is expected to do so again Saturday in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita. Beholder, whom Mandella trains for owner B. Wayne Hughes, will use the filly-and-mare race to prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with only one caveat from Mandella regarding the Zenyatta.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Eleven years after his father, Speightstown, won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and was crowned champion sprinter, Rock Fall will try to follow suit. On Saturday, Rock Fall will try to do the one thing Speightstown couldn’t back in 2004: win the Grade 1 Vosburgh at Belmont Park.
Rock Fall will be heavily favored to do just that when he meets six opponents in the $400,000 Vosburgh, which awards its winner a fees-paid berth in the $1.5 million Sprint at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
More than three decades into Breeders’ Cup history, one doesn’t hear as often about how the Breeders’ Cup, for all the anticipation it generates, has changed the fall-racing landscape from coast to coast, turning major stakes in New York, California, and Kentucky that once were season-ending goals into stepping-stones toward Breeders’ Cup races.
The Breeders’ Cup has the purses and the prestige. Its races aren’t the “championship” events the organization tries to call them, but they’re championship-making.
ARCADIA, Calif. – First at five furlongs, then 6 1/2, and most recently at seven, Nyquist has used his keen speed to secure an advantageous early position and then kick on, earning three straight wins to rank as the best 2-year-old on the West Coast, if not the country.
On Saturday at Santa Anita, he will try to stretch out around two turns for the first time when he heads the field in the Grade 1, $300,000 FrontRunner Stakes over 1 1/16 miles. He will face the same question as all horses who have been in this position, including his sire, Uncle Mo – can he stretch out?
