Spirit One and Casino Drive are the latest foreigners headed to Santa Anita for America's richest prize, the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic.
DRF Past Performances
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Having gotten a useful and successful race into Big Brown last Saturday at Monmouth Park, trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. can sit back and watch the last few rounds of Breeders' Cup prep races run without any feeling any pressure.
"We got ours, we're sitting and waiting," Dutrow said on a warm, breezy morning at Aqueduct, where he worked eight horses for upcoming races.
The Breeders' Cup will allow two horses to be entered as also-eligibles in each of its 14 races for the first time this year, the organization announced on Friday.
The Breeders' Cup had previously closed races at the time of entry, typically on the Wednesday before the race, and did not allow any horses to draw in if a horse was a late scratch. Under the new policy, two horses will be designated as also-eligibles at entry time and may move into a race as late as 7 a.m. on the Friday of the event weekend if there are any scratches before that time.
All 57 races in the series of stakes guaranteeing the winner a berth in one of the 14 Breeders' Cup races will be televised this year on ABC, ESPN, Television Games Network, or HorseRacing TV, the Breeders' Cup said Tuesday.
Twenty of the 57 races will be broadcast live on ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2, which will also broadcast the Breeders' Cup event on Oct. 24-25 at Santa Anita Park. The broadcasts begin July 5 from Monmouth Park, with the Salvator Mile and the United Nations.
Dos Equis, the Mexican beer distributed in the United states by Heineken USA, has reached an agreement to become the "official beer" of the 2008 Breeders' Cup World Championships, scheduled this year for Oct. 24-25 at Santa Anita Park, Breeders' Cup Ltd. announced on Tuesday.
As part of the agreement, Dos Equis will have exclusive on-site marketing rights at Santa Anita. The company will create an entertainment program for the infield at the track during the Breeders' Cup, and will also run retail promotions in the Southern California market before the two-day event.
Emirates Airline has reached an agreement to continue its sponsorship of the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf and will also sponsor the Breeders' Cup Turf for the first time, Breeders' Cup and Emirates said on Monday.
Emirates Airline, which is based in Dubai, had previously sponsored the Filly and Mare Turf and the Distaff, but will take over sponsorship of the Turf this year from John Deere, the farm-equipment manufacturer that is a longtime sponsor of Breeders' Cup.
The first two and a half hours of live Breeders' Cup coverage on Saturday, Oct. 25, has been moved to ABC-TV from its sister network ESPN, officials of Breeders' Cup and the networks said on Monday.
ESPN initially had been scheduled to air six straight hours of live coverage from Santa Anita Park on Oct. 25, the second day of the two-day event. A broadcast window in the early afternoon opened up, however, and Breeders' Cup and ESPN elected to start the coverage on ABC, officials for Breeders' Cup and ESPN said.
Chad Brown parted company with his longtime boss and friend Bobby Frankel on Sunday, bound for Churchill Downs, where he will take out his own training license later this week. But before leaving the Frankel barn, Brown had one last, extremely important function to perform: saddling Ginger Punch to victory in last Saturday's Breeders' Cup Distaff.
Brown, 28, has spent the last five years working as an assistant for Frankel, overseeing his horses on the New Jersey, Kentucky, and Florida circuits. He will have 10 horses of his own during the fall meet at Churchill Downs.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Midnight Lute, whose exhilarating last-to-first victory in the Sprint was one of the most memorable performances on Saturday's Breeders' Cup card at Monmouth Park, will be back again in 2008 - although his ultimate goal next year might not be to defend his title in the Sprint.