ARCADIA, Calif. – Last year, the theme for the Breeders’ Cup was “the best is yet to come.” This year, it should be “same time, next year,” because nine of the horses who won Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita a year ago, including 2012 Horse of the Year Wise Dan, were announced on Wednesday as pre-entries for this year’s event, the 30th Breeders’ Cup, to be held here at Santa Anita on Nov. 1-2.
Skip to main content
Create Your DRF Account
New to DRF?
Everything you could possibly
need in one place
need in one place
Register
Don't have an account?
Register Here
DRF Past Performances
Wed, 10/23/2013 - 11:01
Any discussion of the competitive Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint should begin with last year's winner.
Mizdirection, a perfect 5 for 5 over the Santa Anita downhill turf course, hasn’t raced since tiring over a boggy mile in New York on Belmont Stakes day, but she won last year’s Turf Sprint off a similar layoff. She shows five workouts since mid-September and a seven-furlong drill under Mike Smith on Oct. 18 left trainer Mike Puype pleased with her condition.
“It was a nice strong work,” Puype told Santa Anita publicity last week. “She’s right on schedule.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Game On Dude and Beholder, two of the leading California-based hopes for the Breeders’ Cup, both turned in strong works for their respective races on Tuesday morning at Santa Anita.
Game On Dude, expected to be the favorite in the Classic on Nov. 2, was given an official time of 1:11.40 for six furlongs after working in company for trainer Bob Baffert.
Beholder, part of an expected small but stellar cast for the Distaff on Nov. 1, was timed in 1:24.40 for seven furlongs in a team drill that left her trainer, Richard Mandella, almost giddy.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The move came straight out of the Carl Nafzger playbook. Strictly by design, Fort Larned had his second work in just a three-day span early Tuesday when drilling five furlongs in company at Churchill Downs with a strong gallop-out, all part of Ian Wilkes’s master plan in getting the defending Breeders’ Cup Classic champion back to Santa Anita in peak shape.
The $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile briefly got a major boost when Richard Hannon Jr., the son and assistant to English trainer Richard Hannon, announced on the stable’s website Sunday that Olympic Glory, impressive winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Saturday at Ascot, might well be wheeled back for the BC Mile.
Paynter, preparing for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita, worked in company Monday, but heavy fog obscured all but the final half-furlong of the drill, so track clockers said they were unable to give him an official time.
Paynter is scheduled to have one more work prior to the Classic.
Bob Baffert, who trains Paynter, confirmed that Paynter and Game On Dude were pre-entered Monday in the $5 million Classic, the richest of the 14 Breeders’ Cup races. Pre-entries for the Breeders’ Cup were due Monday and will be announced Wednesday.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The lone New York-based Breeders’ Cup horse to work Monday at Belmont Park was Hymn Book, who went four furlongs in 50.62 seconds in company with the 2-year-old maiden Mischieviously. After crawling a first eighth in 13.86, Hymn Book got the final three furlongs of his move in 36.76 while galloping out five furlongs in 1:03.36.
“I think he’s doing really well,” trainer Shug McGaughey said of Hymn Book, winner of the Grade 1 Donn Handicap in 2012. “I’m seeing him do things around the barn I’ve never seen him do before, being a little more aggressive.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – Last Gunfighter, winner of a trio of Grade 3 races this year including the Pimlico Special, was pre-entered Monday for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic and will be ridden in the race by Javier Castellano, trainer Chad Brown said.
Last Gunfighter was one of 11 horses Brown pre-entered Monday for seven of the 14 Breeders’ Cup races, to be run Nov. 1-2 at Santa Anita.
Belmont Park
Clear
Temperature: 47
Main track: Fast
ELMONT, N.Y. – As expected, Monday was a quiet morning at Belmont Park on the Breeders’ Cup watch, with Hymn Book the only prospective starter to breeze over a somewhat cuppy racetrack shortly after dawn. A similar scenario took place in Kentucky, where the undefeated My Conquestadory, a leading candidate for both the Juvenile Fillies and Juvenile Fillies Turf, was the lone Cup worker at Churchill Downs.