ARCADIA, Calif. - With the likes of Azeri, Got Koko, Sightseek, and Take Charge Lady pointing to the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff, the connections of few others were willing to go in the race. There were only eight pre-entered in the Distaff, making it a cinch to have the shortest field of the eight World Thoroughbred Championship races on Oct. 25 at Santa Anita.
That is nothing new for the Distaff. In 11 of its previous 19 runnings, the Distaff has had eight runners or fewer.
The ink on the winner's circle photo wasn't even dry when the connections of Tiger Hunt, winner of the Sept. 1 Cradle Stakes at River Downs, had dismissed the Breeders' Cup Juvenile as a possible target for their colt.
"The Breeders' Cup? I don't think so,'' said Barry Irwin, president of Team Valor Stables, the syndicate that owns Tiger Hunt. "We're going to think about the first Saturday in May. Why wouldn't you?''
There is plenty of respect, but apparently not a lot of fear of Halfbridled, who figures to be the heaviest favorite on the Breeders' Cup card in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies.
Although Halfbridled has won all three of her starts - including the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante and Grade 2 Oak Leaf - by a combined 19 lengths, there were 13 others pre-entered against her on Thursday in the Juvenile Fillies. It is only the third time in the last nine years that more than 12 horses were pre-entered for the Juvenile Fillies.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Horses who have won stakes at nine tracks in North America and over five courses in Europe highlight an oversubscribed field for the $1.5 million Breeders' Cup Mile at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.
The race drew 17 at Tuesday's pre-entry stage, but will have a limit of 14.
Decarchy, Freefourinternet, Irish Warrior, Peace Rules, Perfect Soul, Special Ring, and Touch of the Blues qualified on a points system based on their wins or placings in graded stakes in North America this year. With the exception of Decarchy, all are 2003 stakes winners.
ARCADIA, Calif. - High Chaparral may be the defending champion of the Breeders' Cup Turf, but he will be left with something to prove when he starts in the $2 million race at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.
This year, High Chaparral will not be a 4-5 favorite like he was at Arlington Park last year. He faces too much competition from the American-based horses and stakes winners from Europe to be a standout.
High Chaparral is one of four notable stakes winners on the list of pre-entered horses announced Thursday.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Fifteen horses from far and wide have been pre-entered for the Breeders' Cup Sprint, and none are as isolated as Private Horde. The colt worked a half-mile Thursday at Churchill Downs, and was then sent back 117 miles to trainer Joe Cain's farm in Russell Springs, Ky.
As expected, the 2003 Filly and Mare Turf will have a distinctly European flavor. Ten of the 14 pre-entrants have spent part or all of their careers racing in Europe, and if all 14 start, it will mark the first time the $1 million Filly and Mare Turf has had a full field since 2000, when Perfect Sting won the event at Churchill Downs.
U.S.-based horses have won three of the first four editions of the Filly and Mare Turf. Banks Hill, who dominated the 2001 edition at Belmont Park, is the only Euro invader to have won the race.
Few would have been surprised had Society Selection gotten a new rider for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Though Ray Ganpath had ridden her to victory in the Grade 1 Frizette earlier this month, he still has had just 37 wins 260 mounts in this country and has never traveled farther west than Stanton, Del.
And heck, Gary Stevens and Edgar Prado were available.
But Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens believes in Ganpath, and Jerkens convinced owners Irv and Marjorie Cowan to believe in him as well.
Is it soup yet?
It is whenever Got Koko needs a between-meal snack. She will take a mouthful of hay, carefully move across her stall to her water bucket, and drop the hay into the water. A few minutes later, she digs into a treat she finds mmm, mmm good.
Got Koko is going from soup to the nuts. She will be one of the leading contenders in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff, which is expected to have a field deep on talent, though short on numbers, when the World Thoroughbred Championships are held at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.
He inspired thoughts of the Triple Crown, had a growing fan club, and spawned a whole line of commercial products. Yet since his defeat in the Belmont Stakes and subsequent dull effort in the Haskell Invitational, Funny Cide had been largely forgotten in the march toward the Oct. 25 Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita.
That all ended last weekend, when the bouncing ball - after skipping past the Discovery Handicap and Empire Classic - landed, improbably, on the Breeders' Cup Classic.
