NEW YORK - When the Breeders' Cup announced the order of this year's eight races earlier this week, I took it as somewhere between a challenge and an engraved invitation: They really, really want someone to hit the Ultra Pick Six this year.
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DRF Past Performances
ARCADIA, Calif. - It is dangerous to think of anything as a slam dunk, whether the prediction is regarding weather, war, or the relatively harmless matter of a horse race.
Still, it was nearly impossible to see beyond Best Pal in the first running of the California Cup Classic, contested at Santa Anita on the afternoon of Nov. 9, 1991. He came into the race ranked among the top 3-year-olds in the land. He had defeated such formidable elders as Twilight Ridge and Unbridled in the Pacific Classic. He was 2-5 in the betting, and from some angles that even looked generous.
NEW YORK - Even before we all start arguing about who's actually going to win the Breeders' Cup races Nov. 4, there are some good arguments to be had about who's going to be allowed to run this year. With 103 pre-entries for just 84 slots in the six oversubscribed races, 19 are on the outside looking in pending scratches.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The idea of the California Cup, to be presented at Santa Anita on Saturday for the 17th time, is to offer a showcase for the Western breed and encourage the production of horses like Lava Man and Brother Derek, both of them good enough to try the Breeders' Cup instead.
It is an admirable goal, and Californians have been at the Breeders' Cup many times. Still, the fact remains that a four-legged native of the Great Golden State has managed to win only two of the 161 Breeders' Cup races contested since the series began. Those two winners were both named Tiznow.
ARCADIA, Calif. - As a veteran trainer who has heard and seen it all, David Bernstein can think of a lot reasons to switch jocks when a rider misses a key race. Burying a brother, though, is not one of them.
When Jon Court had to rush back to Florida earlier this month upon receiving the news that his older brother James had been killed by a truck while riding his bike, he left a lot of Santa Anita business behind. One of the mounts was a personal favorite, Unfurl the Flag, who was using the Oct. 9 War Chant Handicap as his final prep for the California Cup Mile.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Far-fetched as it seems, the Oak Tree Racing Association and the California Thoroughbred Breeders' Association will attempt to run the California Cup series of races this coming Saturday without the assuring presence of Full Moon Madness.
This comes pretty close to staging a wedding without the groom, or doing "The Marriage of Figaro" minus the tenor. Full Moon Madness has been a part of the Cal Cup showcase five times, most significantly in October of 2000 when he won the Cal Cup Sprint.
By now it must be concluded, without fear of contradiction, that the Breeders' Cup Juvenile has very little to do with any semblance of success in Triple Crown events the following year.
Of the 66 young horses who have finished first, second, or third in the 22 BC Juveniles run since 1984, only eight of them went on to win a Kentucky Derby, a Preakness, or a Belmont Stakes. They were Spend a Buck, Alysheba, Easy Goer, Tabasco Cat, Timber Country, Editor's Note, Point Given, and Afleet Alex.
The final Saturday of racing at Belmont Park in 2006 is New York Showcase Day, a program that once seemed like a genuine novelty since every race on the card was for New York-breds. Now more than ever, though, that makes it at least seem like just about every other day at Belmont Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The Russell Baze countdown begins in earnest on Saturday when the man in hot pursuit of Laffit Pincay's all-time win mark of 9,530 will be given a special tribute at Bay Meadows and immortalized with that ultimate cultural honor - the bobblehead.
"When mine first came out at Saratoga, it was a defining moment in my life," said retired Hall of Famer Jerry Bailey, now a racing broadcaster for ABC/ESPN. "That's when my son felt I was somebody. 'Dad, I guess you really are famous. Only famous people have bobbleheads.' "