A total of 212 horses, including three winners from a year ago, one winner from 2022, and a large international cast topped by a record 19 horses from Japan were pre-entered for this year’s Breeders’ Cup, a two-day event consisting of 14 races worth $30 million in purses to be held Nov. 1-2 at Del Mar in Southern California.

The 212 figure is six more than the number of pre-entrants in both 2023 and 2022 and is the second most pre-entries for the Breeders’ Cup behind only the 221 who were pre-entered in 2018.

Since his debut in October 2023, the 3-year-old Irish-bred colt Illinois has had a career focused on distance races, so much so that when he makes an expected start in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at 1 1/2 miles on Nov. 2 at Del Mar he will race at a shorter distance than his last two starts.

Trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien, Illinois has been in the top three in all nine of his races. By the late sire Galileo, Illinois won his second Group 2 in the $216,500 Prix Chaudenay at 1 7/8 miles on soft turf by two lengths at 2-5 at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris on Oct. 5.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The starting lineup for the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Sprint lost one major contender but may have picked up another with the announcements this week that The Chosen Vron is out but Domestic Product is now under consideration for the race. The pair were among 15 horses pre-entered for the event Monday.

Godolphin, Charlie Appleby, and William Buick equaled Goldikova winning their third straight Breeders’ Cup Mile last year. When the trio goes for a fourth, a horse with connections to Goldikova stands among a full complement of turf milers trying to deny them.

The Godolphin skein began at Del Mar in 2021 when William Buick rode Space Blues to victory in the Mile. In 2022, trainer Appleby sent Modern Games out to win, and last year, Master of The Seas turned in a spectacular finish nipping another Godolphin horse, Mawj.

The prognosis wasn’t good for Ways and Means after she emerged from her runner-up effort in last year’s Grade 1 Spinaway at Saratoga with an injury.

Surrounded by reporters after War Like Goddess grabbed the Grade 3 Robert G. Dick Memorial Stakes, Bill Mott stared intently at the infield’s big screen and gave a running commentary of the race replay.

“I guess they went fairly slow, right,” Mott murmured. “You say, okay, she idled off of that, but they’re not going to close into that as if they went in 49 and 1:13. The horse that was second is on the lead right now.”

A high-class older mare seeking her second victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff for trainer Brad Cox will battle an outstanding 3-year-old filly making her first start against older for trainer Kenny McPeek.

It’s like 2020 all over again in the BC Distaff, only better.

Idiomatic, the 5-year-old Cox trainee who won the BC Distaff last year, will face Thorpedo Anna, the 3-year-old McPeek trainee with four Grade 1 wins. Idiomatic and Thorpedo Anna top the 12 fillies and mares pre-entered in the $2 million BC Distaff scheduled for Nov. 2 at Del Mar.

There will be plenty of surprises in the final run-up to the Breeders’ Cup and in the results of the races themselves. But one thing that’s no surprise is that the newest race on the program, the Grade 1, $1 million Juvenile Turf Sprint, once again, has drawn a massive group from around the globe at the pre-entry stage.

Snowyte will attempt to accomplish the same feat as her sire next month when she tries to win her maiden in a Breeders’ Cup race at Del Mar.

Good Magic did so in the Juvenile in 2017, while Snowyte is on deck for the Grade 1, $2 million Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 1.

She was one of 11 pre-entered in the 1 1/16-mile race, alongside Breeders’ Cup Challenge winners Immersive, Non Compliant, and Scottish Lassie. Final entries will be taken Monday.