ARCADIA, Calif. - If they win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile again this fall, trainer Bob Baffert and jockey Garrett Gomez will be less surprised than one year ago.
Midshipman was a project before he became a champion. He worked so slow that one top jockey told Baffert he never wanted to work the horse again. Midshipman needed blinkers. He showed only minor promise until August and required specific strategy.
ARCADIA, Calif. - When the Breeders' Cup was expanded to 14 races last year and spread over two days, all the races exclusively for females were run on Friday. The Ladies' Classic was the premier race of that day, and it lived up to its billing, with Zenyatta remaining undefeated with a victory over Cocoa Beach and Music Note.
Zenyatta's attempt to run her record to 13 wins without a loss in the Oct. 10 Lady's Secret Stakes at Santa Anita Park will be televised live on either ESPN or ESPN Classic as part of live television coverage of preps for the Breeders' Cup, the network and Breeders' Cup announced on Monday.
The Lady's Secret will be broadcast live at 7:20 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 10 on ESPN if Zenyatta is scheduled to run in the race and is still undefeated. Her connections have announced the Lady's Secret as her next intended start.
The Breeders' Cup has added eight races in foreign countries to its Win and You're In program, which guarantees the winner a starting position in one of the 14 Breeders' Cup races scheduled this year for Nov. 6-7 at Santa Anita Park in Southern California.
The addition of the foreign races, along with some additions and deletions - mostly from Saratoga - on the domestic racing calendar, bring the number of Win and You're In races to 62 this year, up from 57 last year.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum has made no secret about his desire to win the Kentucky Derby with a horse from Dubai, the country that he rules. That's why it is highly likely, though not official, that Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Midshipman will be headed to Dubai in the coming weeks.
As of Monday, however, Midshipman was still in the Santa Anita barn of Bob Baffert, who hopes his status as a three-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer has an impact on Sheikh Mohammed.
ELMONT, N.Y. - A few days after the 2007 Breeders' Cup, one in which he saddled Ginger Punch to victory in the $2 million Distaff for his absent boss Bobby Frankel, Chad Brown packed up his truck, and along with his wife, Terrill, headed to Kentucky to begin life as a public trainer.
Brown had worked for Frankel for six years - and trainer Shug McGaughey before that - and had been an annual participant at the majority of racing's major events, including the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup. As a rookie trainer, Brown wasn't sure how long it would take to get back to a big race.
Goldikova, the spine-tingling winner of the Breeders' Cup Mile, is headed back to France, presumably to await a 2009 campaign that easily could end with another trip to the BC Mile. And the connections of Kip Deville should be pleased if Goldikova stays half a world away while Kip travels to Hong Kong for the Dec. 14 Hong Kong Mile, a race that as of Monday had been penciled into his agenda.
ARCADIA, Calif. - There are three continents on which Donativum, the winner of Saturday's $1,130,000 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita, could make his next start.
A gelding, Donativum could return to England and be pointed for major stakes in that country, though not the 2000 Guineas, which is restricted to fillies and colts. He could be sent to Dubai and race there for owners Sheikh Mohammed and Princess Haya of Jordan. Or, Donativum could be sent back to the United States in 2009 for a crack at the Kentucky Derby.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Throughout his career, there has been nothing artificial about Curlin, but in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Saturday at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting, an artificial surface may have done him in, while elevating Europeans who might not have been in the race otherwise.
Raven's Pass and Henrythenavigator, who traded blows all year in grass races in Europe, transferred that form to the synthetic Pro-Ride surface at Santa Anita and led a one-two finish of Europeans in the Classic. Before a crowd of 51,331 Saturday, Europeans won five races.
