ARCADIA, Calif. - To be perfectly accurate, the serious Breeders' Cup action begins on Saturday with the $200,000 Breeders' Cup Steeplechase, a full week before the eight more famous Breeders' Cup races are to be offered at Belmont Park. But first let's get a few things straight.
NEW YORK - If you buy a ticket for the new horse-racing movie "Dreamer" before next Saturday at a Loews theater, your stub will get you free admission to Belmont Park for the Breeders' Cup on Oct. 29. With movie tickets retailing for around $8 these days, and grandstand admission for the Cup going for $10, this may sound like a foolproof plan to save two bucks.
WASHINGTON - When pre-entries for the Breeders' Cup were announced Wednesday, the usual powerful stables were strongly represented. Trainer Todd Pletcher has eight horses in the eight championship races Oct. 29 at Belmont Park. Nick Zito, Bill Mott and Ireland's Aidan O'Brien each have five probable starters. Andy Leggio has one - the filly Happy Ticket. She is the first Breeders' Cup runner of his career and the best Thoroughbred he has trained in his 71 years.
TUCSON, Ariz. - Suddenly, on Tuesday of this week, the huge problem that horse racing faces exploded in an unexpected place: the pages of the highly respected Washington Post.
A long story, by Post staff writer Amy Shipley, was headlined, "Chemists Stay a Step Ahead of Drug Testers," with a subhead reading, "Internet Offers New Steroids Designed to be Undetectable."
ARCADIA, Calif. - Just because a guy has won more than 4,500 races, three Eclipse Awards and enjoys a place in the Hall of Fame, it doesn't mean things always go as smooth as silk. Horses don't care. Equipment fails. Business ebbs and flows, and the breaks can go either way.
Kent Desormeaux, who answers to such a description, currently finds himself in the market for another one of his fabled career comebacks. He's done it before - more than Cher and Frank Sinatra combined - so the smart money should ride on Desormeaux coming through once again.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The Pons family is throwing a party on Monday afternoon at their Country Life Farm, out there deep in Maryland's Harford Country, just off Old Joppa Road, near a stream known as Winners Run. But this is not exactly news. The Country Life Preakness parties are legendary. Crab feasts are common, and no one at Country Life ever really needs an excuse to throw open the gates and hang out the welcome sign.
NEW YORK - According to the British bookmakers and their customers, once you get past Saint Liam, Rock Hard Ten, and Borrego, the horses to beat in the Breeders' Cup Classic are Starcraft, Oratorio, and Bago. Each of those European-based runners would be making his first start in the United States or on dirt of any kind. As of Friday, the antepost odds from England were as low as 5-1 on Starcraft, 8-1 on Oratorio, and 12-1 on Bago.
ARCADIA, Calif. - It's never a bad idea to salute Laffit Pincay, anytime, anywhere. Besides, it gets him out of the house.
The Oak Tree Racing Association takes its turn on Saturday, and appropriately so, since Pincay is the all-time leading Oak Tree rider and figures to retain that honor for the foreseeable future.
NEW YORK - When the National Thoroughbred Racing Association announced that it was teaming with Bethesda Softworks to create a Breeders' Cup video game, there was every reason for racing fans and game-players to be optimistic.
The handful of racing games on the market suffer from the absence of licensed likenesses of actual tracks and horses, which the NTRA could provide. Bethesda is a top-notch game developer, best known for the Elder Scrolls series, including Morrowind, which won several Game of the Year awards in 2002 and occupied 100 or so hours of my personal dark-day time.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The drama surrounding Afleet Alex has ended, and now, mercifully, the pressure is off Tim Ritchey to bring the colt back in time for the Breeders' Cup Classic.
In many respects, the goal was unreasonable, even with Ritchey's old-school approach to conditioning that has served Afleet Alex so well. But racing fans have come to expect remarkable strokes of artistry from the little bay colt. For most horses, making the Classic after ankle surgery in June would have been unthinkable. For Afleet Alex, it was well within the realm of possibility.
