Knicks Go was cut out to be a good horse. As a 2-year-old in the fall of 2018, he won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity and finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

At 3, however, his performances ranged from decent to dismal. Eight starts netted zero wins.

DEL MAR, Calif – The complexion of Friday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar changed less than 24 hours before post time with the news that morning-line favorite Jack Christopher would be scratched due to a shin injury.

Super High 5 bets offered on every race on the Friday and Saturday cards at Del Mar, including the 14 Breeders’ Cup races, will only pay out the pool on a perfect ticket and will roll over to the next race if there is no ticket with the winning combination, according to Breeders’ Cup.

Del Mar

Weather: CloudyTemp.: 56Track: FastTurf: Firm

DEL MAR, Calif. – Another cold, damp morning at Del Mar, with the fog holding off for the most part, although it showed bad timing by closing in over the track just as a dozen or so Europeans came out to put in some serious training on the turf course shortly before 7:30 a.m.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Domestic Spending and United on Thursday were both scratched from Saturday’s $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf by their connections after both geldings had inflammation in a front leg.

Their scratches opened up spots in the starting gate for both Bolshoi Ballet and Channel Maker to make the field.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainers wake up every day dreading what problems they’ll find at the barn, and for Chad Brown and Richard Mandella on Thursday at Del Mar, it was not a good morning.

Brown, who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf two years ago with Bricks and Mortar, was forced to scratch Domestic Spending from this year’s race owing to inflammation in his left front leg. United, who finished second to Bricks and Mortar, also had to be scratched by Mandella, who said United had filling over a suspensory in a leg.

DEL MAR, Calif. – When Charlie Appleby turned up for the first time at a California racetrack, at Santa Anita in October 2013, he surely didn’t mind getting away from racing in his native England for several days.

To be fair, the heat had dissipated from a raging firestorm Appleby had walked a few months earlier, when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, head of the international racing and breeding powerhouse Godolphin, tapped Appleby to take over the training yard at Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket, northeast of London.

With a little luck, or even an assist from Irish stewards in September, and better weather in Paris last month, Tarnawa would be in the midst of an unbeaten season in advance of Saturday’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar.

DEL MAR, Calif. – It requires tremendous talent to get to the Breeders’ Cup Mile. It takes a whole lotta luck to win it.

Fourteen horses, two tight turns, a relatively short run from the top of the homestretch to the Del Mar finish line: If you think just about anything can happen in the Mile – this Mile, particularly – you’re right.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen summed up his feelings and the confidence he has in Jackie’s Warrior coming into Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar in just three words: “Wow he’s fast!”

Asmussen knows a little bit about training fast horses. Two years ago he sent out Mitole to prove a popular winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint just up the road at Santa Anita. And as recently as late September his Yaupon sat atop the division before retiring due to a sesamoid fracture suffered during a routine gallop in preparation for the 2021 Sprint.