Ever since starting in 1984, the Breeders’ Cup has always had to compete with college football.
Compete for TV time, compete for coverage on the day of the races, compete for headlines in the Sunday newspapers, and now in the new-media age competing for mentions on Twitter and Facebook. When your event is held in the middle of the day on a fall Saturday, there’s no way to avoid it (of course, if the BC was held instead on Sunday, that would be even more of a mismatch, so we won’t go there).
Saturday’s nine Breeders’ Cup races are a staggeringly compelling card of racing, a combination of competitive, if not inscrutable, wagering propositions and showcases for many of the most talented horses on the planet.
The first five races fall into the first category, starting with the Marathon. American horses run 1 3/4 miles about as often as they skydive, and the Europeans who do have never raced on the dirt. I’ll side with distance over surface and try the imports Meeznah (12-1 morning line) and Brigantin (8-1) to upset the Americans A. U. Miner, Giant Oak, and Cease.
Friday’s six Breeders’ Cup races, a new Juvenile Sprint and then the five Cup races restricted to fillies and mares, are aesthetically appealing. They will decide four of the sport’s 2011 divisional Eclipse Awards and include some attractive matchups among the leading contenders for those prizes.
The most important decision that owners and trainers can make when managing a racehorse is the choice of when to be conservative and when to be bold. The people in charge of the three most prominent horses in the Breeders’ Cup – Uncle Mo, Goldikova, and Havre de Grace – have all opted for boldness, ensuring some great drama, and probably some intense second-guessing, at Churchill Downs.
Take a close look at the horse and her rider strolling postward on Friday as favorites for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill Downs. After what they’ve been through, the race ought to be a piece of cake.
Turbulent Descent displays very apparent scars on a knee and an ankle from a nightmare moment during her first plane flight, 18 months ago, from Orlando to Memphis. David Flores, on the other hand, sports fresh facial wounds suffered two Mondays back, when a car turned in front of his Yamaha 800 on a busy highway east of Santa Anita Park.
This reporter was diligently preparing to write a raft of feel-good Breeders’ Cup stories when he took a time out the other night to catch up with the first episode of the new Starz cable TV series “Boss,” starring Kelsey Grammer as an iron-fisted Chicago mayor.
Right off the bat, His Honor is slapped with some bad news about the state of his health. Delivered by a neuroligist in an abandoned slaughterhouse, this is what the mayor was told he had:
It’s not exactly a newsflash that European grass horses are superior to American grass horses. They’ve been illustrating that since the Breeders’ Cup began in 1984, when there were only two Cup races on the grass and Irish-bred Royal Heroine won the inaugural Mile while English-bred Lashkari and French-bred All Along ran 1-2 in the first Turf.
Mace Siegel woke up Wednesday morning in his own bed, at home in Beverly Hills, to the sounds of his daughter, Samantha, working the phones with their horse trainers around the country and to the bustle of the indispensable Sandra DeSalvo busy with household chores. After spending a month in the hospital and in rehab, already Mace was having a good day.
