ELMONT, N.Y. – Five stakes will be run at Aqueduct over Breeders’ Cup weekend.
The Friday opening-day feature will be the Grade 3, $150,000 Tempted, a one-turn mile for 2-year-old fillies. Impressive maiden winner Navajo will be a solid favorite in the six-horse field for trainer Tony Dutrow.
Navajo rallied from off the pace to win a one-mile race at Belmont by 3 1/4 lengths on Oct. 1.
“She’s taken another step forward since that race,” Dutrow said.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Analyze It made an auspicious 2-year-old debut for owner William Lawrence and trainer Chad Brown on Saturday at Belmont Park, winning a one-mile race on turf by 6 1/4 lengths.
Analyze It, from the first crop of five-time Grade 1 winner Point of Entry, took the lead soon after the start and was joined and then headed by another rival. When set down for the stretch run by Irad Ortiz Jr., Analyze It took off and left the competition far behind.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Summer Revolution began his comeback with a nifty optional-claiming win at Belmont Park last week. The career of Tom’s Ready is winding down, but he added another graded stakes win to his record Saturday in the Bold Ruler. Both horses are being considered for the Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Dec. 2.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Although it will be another year before Breeders’ Cup horses converge en masse upon Churchill Downs, the event’s 2018 host site, Wednesday’s card at Churchill offers a bit of a taste of the Breeders’ Cup due to the presence of 2016 Juvenile Fillies runner-up Valadorna in the ninth race, a $65,000, second-level allowance at 1 1/16 miles on the main track.
DEL MAR, Calif. – In the 33 runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, to be renewed Saturday at Del Mar, a 3-year-old has won the race 12 times. That shows the formidable historical hurdle West Coast, Gunnevera, and Pavel face in taking on their elders, let alone the specifics of this year’s top-heavy race, with outstanding older runners such as Arrogate, Gun Runner, and Collected.
A full gate of 14 is pre-entered in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint for Saturday, but just one name – Unique Bella – has dominated the conversation as the $1 million race draws near.
A winner in 5 of 6 career starts, Unique Bella has awed even the opposing trainers of the 13 pre-entered against her in the seven-furlong Filly and Mare Sprint.
“I’ve been watching her train, and she’s just extremely fast,” said Bob Baffert, who will run Constellation against her. “She’s got just raw, raw speed, raw talent. It looks like she’s ready to roll.”
On Saturday afternoon, barring a thunderstorm in the Ocala, Fla., area, you’ll find the old mare where she nearly always is, a lone horse in a lovely paddock situated near the main residence on Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud.
Don’t bother trying to coax her to the fence. Win Approval wants nothing to do with companionship, human or equine. Offer her a kind word and she will return the greeting with, at best, an anxious glance.
The first time Gary and Mary West won a Breeders’ Cup race they nearly missed the moment.
In the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita, the Wests’s New Year’s Day rallied from eighth on the rail in the stretch to take the lead in the final 100 yards.
“The truth of the matter is I lost sight of the horse,” Gary West recalled last week. “The announcer didn’t call his name for the longest time. It was the last 150 yards that we saw he had a shot.
“The excitement for me and my wife and the people with us only lasted about 10 seconds. It was an exciting 10 seconds.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – So much enthusiasm and energy has been devoted to the first Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Friday and Saturday that the rest of the season has been understandably overlooked.
The meeting, which begins with a nine-race program Wednesday, will continue through Nov. 26.
While there are no seven-figure purses after the Breeders’ Cup, the final three weeks of the meeting include 11 days of racing and a bumper finish with eight graded stakes on the final four days.
DEL MAR
Main Track: Fast
Turf: Firm
Weather: Cloudy
Temp.: 64
DEL MAR, Calif. – There was action aplenty on all fronts, turf and dirt, at Del Mar on Sunday, with 19 potential Breeders’ Cup starters recording works during the busiest day yet at the site of the 2017 Breeders’ Cup.
