LEXINGTON, Ky. - When the Breeders’ Cup is over jockeys John Velazquez and Flavien Prat will be heading West to ride at Del Mar, whose 13-day fall meet begins on Friday.

For Velazquez, who has typically ridden in New York during the fall, it gives him a jump-start for the winter where, for the second year in a row, he will ride at Santa Anita.

“He’s going to ride some for Bob [Baffert], that’s always good,” Ron Anderson, the agent for Velazquez said. “There was nothing that important going on at Aqueduct so we said yes.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – She’s been something of a buzz horse, this Canadian interloper in a race that typically boils down to the U.S. versus Europe. Maybe that’s what a Queen’s Plate romp will do for a gal.

“I think she’s very talented,” trainer Kevin Attard said of Moira, whose 10-1 morning-line odds ahead of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Saturday at Keeneland might belie an undercurrent of support that seems to have built for her this week. “Against the 3-year-olds in Canada, she’s been dominant, right?”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The reviews were highly positive from jockeys who rode the ninth race Thursday at Churchill Downs over a turf course rated good.

“I thought it felt smooth and level throughout the whole race,” said Joe Talamo, whose mount, Quaria Brava, pressed the pace for much of the 1 1/16-mile race before fading to finish last of 10. “All the jocks said the same thing, that it’s the best it has felt since they put it in.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – G Laurie, 12-1 on the morning line of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday, was withdrawn from the race on Thursday afternoon after she “spiked a temperature,” according to her trainer, Graham Motion.

“Terrible timing,” Motion said, in confirming the withdrawal.

Before Flavien Prat earlier this year moved his tack east from Southern California for opportunities in New York and Kentucky, he made sure to first talk with John Sadler, trainer of Flightline. Prat had ridden the colt in his first three starts, including an 11 1/2-length victory in the Grade 1 Malibu on Dec. 26, and didn’t want to lose the mount.

“I wasn’t going to leave if I couldn’t ride the horse,” Prat said.

Two Breeders’ Cup horses were scratched from their respective races on Thursday by regulatory veterinarians, according to the organization and the horse’s connections. The two horses were Informative, who was set to run in Saturday’s Dirt Mile, and Hot Peppers, who was set to run in the Filly and Mare Sprint the same day.

Informative, a 30-1 shot owned and trained by Uriah St. Lewis, was the most experienced horse in the Dirt Mile field, with 36 career starts.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – And Tell Me Nolies will be the only multiple graded stakes winner to walk into the starting gate ahead of the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Friday at Keeneland, and yet the Arrogate filly wasn’t generating much buzz this week – at all.

“That’s just fine with me,” said Peter Miller, who trains And Tell Me Nolies for Vancouver real estate magnate Peter Redekop. “Respect doesn’t pay the bills.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Much has changed for Hollie Doyle since her first and only Breeders’ Cup mount two years ago at Keeneland, but even then, with Mightly Gurkha coming home a tame 11th in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, the ground had shifted beneath Doyle’s feet.

KEENELAND
Weather: Foggy
Temperature: 46
Track: Fast
Turf: Good

LEXINGTON, KY. – Save for Breeders’ Cup Mile contender MALAVATH, all major prep work was done before the three tracks opened for business Thursday morning at Keeneland. The theme of the day was just keeping everyone safe and happy in the final hours leading up to Friday and Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It comes down to this: In Europe, Thoroughbreds are turf horses. Racing in America has a heart made of dirt.

Lashkari in 1984 and Pebbles in 1985 won the first and second editions of the Breeders’ Cup Turf. That’s one bookend over time: The other is the nine overseas winners during the last two Breeders’ Cups, five at Del Mar in 2021, four at Keeneland in 2020.

Americans somehow swept the 2-year-old grass races on Breeders’ Cup Friday two years ago, but Europeans came back to win all four Saturday grass contests.