There is much on the line in the Breeders’ Cup, not the least of which are year-end championships. Here’s a look at one man’s opinion of the Eclipse Award scenarios going into this Breeders’ Cup.
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DRF Past Performances
There are several East Coast trainers who have had little or no personal experience running horses at Del Mar. As to why, their answer is always, “Saratoga.”
“I know nothing about it,” McGaughey told Steve Byk on “At the Races” the other day, “which is a little bit uncomfortable.”
Look for the name of Frankel to be invoked frequently on Saturday in England, where the Qipco Champions Day figures to rivet the attention of anyone serious about the best possible racing.
Frankel, as in Bobby, owns the record for the most Grade 1 or Group 1 wins in a single season being madly pursued by Aidan O’Brien. The Irishman enters Saturday’s Champions program at Ascot one win shy of catching Frankel’s mark of 25, accomplished in 2003, and with contenders in all four Group 1 races on the card, clearly O’Brien is attacking the record in force.
Denny Sparks stood at the mouth of the long, bare expanse running between the barns located a few steps from the back door of the Del Mar stable office. It was Monday morning, one week before the track would be open for training in anticipation of the first Breeders’ Cup to be presented at the seaside track, and preparations were starting to get serious.
“Don’t worry, we’ll pretty it up for the guys coming in from out of town,” said Sparks, who shares stable superintendent duties with Tom Fator and Jackie Lynn. “We’ll get the sand in here and set it up just right.”
In a review of this year’s key Breeders’ Cup prep races, I was struck how some were noticeably stronger in terms of Beyer Speed Figures than those last year for the same Breeders’ Cup events, and how others were markedly weaker.
While I’m certain one could find similar variances every year over the preceding year, this information still provides an interesting snapshot of the relative strength of some of this year’s Breeders’ Cup divisions in comparison to last year, and is worth imparting.
Paddy Gallagher has spent the last year and a half trying to get the long-winded Flamboyant back to the level of his effort in the 2016 running of the $6 million Dubai Turf, in which he came within 2 3/4 lengths of becoming the first U.S.-based horse to win the race in 20 agonizing years.
Flamboyant never really looked like a winner that night, but he managed to raise a few heart rates with a stout run down the middle of the home straight and came within a nod of finishing third. His people were rightfully proud.
Peter Miller was limping through the paddock gardens at Santa Anita, on his way to watch one of his horses run. Blood was leaking through the outside of his blue jeans below the left knee.
“Horse in the second race got me,” Miller said when asked. “No, he didn’t win.”
The trainer shrugged it off as an occupational hazard. One week later, celebrating in the winner’s circle after the Grade 1 victory of Roy H in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship, Miller conceded the leg was still tender, but – as his mentor Charlie Whittingham used to say – it was a long way from his heart.
The day started out so fine. That morning, Daddys Lil Darling worked a smart half-mile on the Keeneland turf for Ken McPeek in preparation for the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup one week hence, in which she will be one of the favorites. A few hours later, McPeek won with the first of his five Keeneland runners that Saturday afternoon, when Kathballu took a seven-furlong allowance event worth $75,000.
If Unique Bella comes back with a flourish on Sunday in the L.A. Woman Stakes at Santa Anita, she will be poised to join an elite group of racing greats who blew off most of the season only to emerge at the top of the heap in a Breeders’ Cup race at the end of the year.