LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If the horses running in Saturday’s Grade 2, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf were merely the ones who competed in the Grade 3 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont last month, Kiaran McLaughlin, the trainer of Pilgrim runner-up Soldat, said he could feel good about his horse’s chances.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The racing pages are rife this week with a juicy fact that hits at the heart of the Breeders’ Cup Turf: All five winners of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe who raced in the BC Turf lost.

It appeared last Saturday that Sheldon Russell had escaped serious injury in a racing mishap at Laurel Park. Unfortunately, later that night it was determined that Russell had broken eight ribs and that three of them had punctured his lungs.

Russell, 23, had surgery late that night at the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore and is now home resting comfortably.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. − Approximately four hours before Zenyatta takes her final steps on a racetrack in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, the sport’s heir apparent star will most likely be crowned in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Each year, the Juvenile carries with it the sport’s future hopes, and the winner is often anointed the leading contender for next spring’s Kentucky Derby, which, like this year’s Juvenile, will be run at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Saturday marks the fourth running of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, but it’s actually the first one run at a mile on dirt. In 2007, it was run at a mile and 70 yards around two turns in the slop at Monmouth Park. The two subsequent years it was run over Santa Anita’s synthetic Pro-Ride surface.

This year’s $1 million Dirt Mile drew the best field it ever has with the 13 horses assembled making it one of the more contentious and compelling races on Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup program at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It might be argued that every inch, every maneuver, and every decision in any given race are critical to the outcome. But when it comes to a race like the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, the margins for error are so small that the winner not only will have to run his eyeballs out but also is likely to have been particularly fortunate in all those other respects.

The Breeders’ Cup once again will offer several special wagers and guaranteed pools, as well as a standard betting menu. Here is a list of the available bets:

* The BC Jockey Bet, which is a win-only wager ($2 minimum) on the jockey with the most BC wins over the two-day period. In case of a tie for most wins, the pool will be split as if it were a place pool (two-way tie), show pool (three-way tie), etc.

Most horseplayers won’t wager on the Grade 3, $500,000 Breeders’ Cup Marathon until Friday afternoon. But two significant “bets” have already been made by the owners of Alcomo and Prince Will I Am, who required supplemental fees to gain entry.

Alcomo, a Brazilian-bred by Rainbow Corner, was supplemented by owner Abdul Rahman Al Jasmi for $75,000. Prince Will I Am, owned by Casa Farms, was supplemented for $45,000.

Trainer Mike Mitchell received two text messages from owner Ahmed Zayat on Wednesday morning regarding Jaycito, their contender for Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

“The first was ‘I’m so nervous,’ ” Mitchell said. “I text him back and said, ‘I’m not nervous until something happens where my horse isn’t doing good.’ When he’s doing great, I’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

In the second text, Zayat asked Mitchell if he was happy with how Jaycito was doing.

Handle and attendance figures at the recently concluded Belmont Park fall meet rose significantly when compared with last year’s fall meet, which was plagued by foul weather and double-digit declines in the same categories.

The upticks in the figures were good news considering the declines facing many racetracks in the U.S. over the past two years, but the average daily all-sources figure for handle also remained well short of the figures posted during the fall meet of 2008.