If sheer numbers act as a guide, Europeans are in for a memorable 2011 Breeders’ Cup. Twenty-six of them are here for the Cup’s 15 races, with eight horses scheduled to run on Friday’s program, 18 on Saturday.
Most of the shippers arrived Saturday, with Aidan O’Brien – as is his habit – bringing his stock from Ireland as late as possible. O’Brien’s eight Saturday runners only arrived Tuesday and will not train until Friday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When the Breeders’ Cup officially begins Friday with the inaugural running of the $500,000 Juvenile Sprint, the race will carry a familiar Breeders’ Cup theme – Bob Baffert has a prominent contender.
Baffert, a seven-time Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer, has the 6-5 morning-line favorite in Secret Circle, one of nine horses Baffert is expected to run at Churchill Downs on Friday and Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jockeys in Breeders’ Cup races will continue to be allowed to make pre-race comments to television reporters during this year’s two-day event, one year after comments made by jockey John Velazquez about the pre-race condition of his mount Life At Ten led to an investigation and consideration of charges against the rider and the state’s chief steward.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tearing the shell from the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf won’t take taxing effort. Twelve were entered in the $2 million race to be run around three turns and over 1 3/8 miles, and either Stacelita, Announce, Nahrain, or Misty for Me seems likely to win. But the nut at the race’s heart feels far tougher to crack.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It would be too simplistic to label Friday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies a showdown between the East Coast’s My Miss Aurelia and the West Coast’s Weemissfrankie. The race goes deeper than that.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There once was an equine pipeline running from Europe to California and pumping a steady stream of stakes-class grass horses into Bobby Frankel’s stable.
Frankel won six Breeders’ Cup races during his Hall of Fame career, two of them in the Filly and Mare Turf, with Starine in 2002 and Intercontinental in 2005. Small wonder Chad Brown had proper training tools at hand when Stacelita joined his string late this summer after spending most of her life in France.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Elusive Kate will attempt to return quick dividends to her new owner, Terry Yoshida, when she starts as the favorite in Friday’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Churchill Downs.
Yoshida purchased Elusive Kate, a Group 1 winner at Longchamp in France on Oct. 2, privately from her former owners – Robert and Janice McNair and Rachel Hood, the wife of trainer John Gosden – in a deal that was not finalized until Monday. Gosden will continue to train Elusive Kate, who will race in the name of Yoshida and the McNairs’ Magnolia Racing Stable on Friday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If the tote board means anything, Mike Puype made the right call for Turbulent Descent after the filly dominated the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 6. Puype decided not to give his stable star another race leading up to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and put her through a rigorous training schedule in California instead.
