LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After an action-packed week of morning activity leading up to last weekend’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Churchill Downs, culminating in two days of 15 races going off, rat-a-tat, at half-hour intervals, there are plenty of loose ends to tie up before we head into a long winter at the Big A.
*The Breeders’ Cup was designed to determine year-end championships in the different divisions of thoroughbred racing; and while Horse of the Year is still very much up in the air, a number of Eclipse Awards were decided.
Royal Delta clinched the 3-year-old filly championship winning Friday’s Ladies’ Classic. Previously, she won the Black-Eyed Susan and Alabama, and was second to Havre de Grace in the Beldame.
Havre de Grace, still a leading Horse of the Year contender after finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, is a cinch to take home the Eclipse for best older female.
Although Stephanie’s Kitten might get a few votes for her victories in the Alcibiades and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, My Miss Aurelia nailed down the Eclipse for top 2-year-old filly winning the Juvenile Fillies on Friday by three lengths.
It was the fourth win in four starts for the daughter of Smart Strike, including the Adirondack and Frizette, which she won by 5 ½ lengths. My Miss Aurelia was one of the stars of this year’s show, and could get some support for Horse of the Year.
“She gets my vote,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “Horse of the Year is for great horses. She’s great.”
The California-bred 5-year-old gelding Amazombie will be voted champion sprinter after taking the Sprint, following his win in the Grade 1 Ancient Title. He also won three other stakes sprinting in Southern California, including a Grade 2 and Grade 3.
The female sprint title is up in the air. Musical Romance won the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at 20-1, won a Grade 2 race at Presque Isle Downs and two other sprint stakes at Calder. But Sassy Image and Hilda’s Passion, both injured before the Breeders’ Cup, are also strong candidates.
Stacelita, despite finishing 10th as the 9-5 favorite in the Filly & Mare Turf, is the favorite for the female grass championship off Grade 1 wins in the Beverly D. and Flower Bowl.
After shipping over from Ireland to win three Grade 1 turf races in America – the Man o’War, Arlington Million and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic – Cape Blanco will be champion male grass horse. He was injured in the Joe Hirsch and missed the Breeders’ Cup.
*The 3-year-olds took turns beating each other all year, and since none came through in the Classic – Belmont winner Ruler On Ice was third, Pennsylvania Derby winner To Honor and Serve was seventh, Kelso winner Uncle Mo was 10th and Travers winner Stay Thirsty was 11th – it looks like this Eclipse might come down to two colts who were unlikely candidates before the Breeders’ Cup:
Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, who was second in the Preakness before being injured in the Belmont; and Caleb’s Posse, winner of Saturday’s Dirt Mile by four lengths in a swift 1:34.59 over a track where they ran the Classic in a slow 2:04.27.
Caleb’s Posse is the only 3-year-old with two Grade 1 wins this year: the Dirt Mile, when he was also the only 3-year-old to beat older horses; and the seven-furlong King’s Bishop, when he beat Uncle Mo. Caleb’s Posse also won the Smarty Jones, the Grade 3 Ohio Derby and Grade 2 Amsterdam.
*Hansen, winner of his first two starts over Polytrack at Turfway Park, including the ungraded Kentucky Cup Juvenile, by 12 and 13 lengths, will likely get the 2-year-old championship after holding off even-money favorite Union Rags to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by a head after leading all the way. After all, 22 of the previous 27 2-year-old champs since they inaugurated the Breeders’ Cup won the Juvenile.
But not so fast. Union Rags, a dominating winner of his first three starts before the Juvenile, including the Grade 2 Saratoga Special and Grade 1 Champagne, will still get plenty of support. After going wide around both turns under what seemed like an overconfident ride by Javier Castellano, Union Rags was in front of Hansen a jump past the wire in the Juvenile. Many feel he was the best horse in the race.
Union Rags certainly remains the early favorite for next year’s Kentucky Derby. In that respect, maybe his narrow loss was a good thing, because he won’t have to worry about the “Breeders’ Cup Jinx,” whose latest victim was Uncle Mo.
Only one Juvenile winner, Street Sense, won the Derby, and most don’t even make it to the Triple Crown. Saturday’s race recalled the 2000 Breeders’ Cup at Churchill, when Macho Uno won the Juvenile by a nose over the fast-closing Point Given. Macho Uno never made it to the 2001 Derby. Point Given was the beaten Derby favorite, but he did win the Preakness, Belmont, Haskell, Travers and Horse of the Year.
*For the second straight year, there was a disturbing incident at Churchill Downs that spoke to the integrity of the game.
In 2010, it was the infamous Life At Ten episode, when jockey John Velazquez told ESPN that the 7-2 second choice in the Ladies’ Classic wasn’t warming up properly. She was allowed to start and basically was eased up all the way around the track. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Life At Ten was never tested after the race. A months-long investigation by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission did not provide a satisfactory answer to what happened, and made Velazquez the scapegoat.
This year’s incident was less egregious, but no less disturbing.
On Thursday morning, four European horses, recently out of quarantine, headed to the turf course to stretch their legs. One of them, Sea Moon, was scheduled to breeze a half-mile or longer, not having raced since Sept. 11.
But when the Euros got to the turf course, they found it had been closed by Churchill track superintendent Butch Lehr, even though the dogs were up to protect the inner part of the course, simply because it had begun to drizzle about 20 minutes earlier.
Sea Moon’s trainer, Sir Michael Stoute, and another English trainer tried to open the gate to the course themselves, but were prevented by Churchill security. So Sea Moon headed back to the quarantine barn without his breeze.
Asked the next morning if that might affect Sea Moon’s form, Stoute – one of the world’s legendary horsemen – said, “I don’t know. I would have preferred to breeze. It’s very annoying.”
As the 3-1 second choice in the Turf on Saturday, with millions of dollars riding on him, Sea Moon made a strong move in the stretch but settled for second.
Did the lack of a breeze on Thursday cost him the race? We don’t know.
We also don’t know, though some have speculated, if Lehr’s closing the turf course was payback for last year, when Stoute complained for days about the condition of the turf course – he said it was too hard – and then scratched his colt Workforce, the favorite for the Turf after winning the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, on Breeders’ Cup morning.
*Perhaps the shabby treatment of the Euros on Thursday morning explains why the stewards turned a blind-eye to Goldikova’s rodeo run in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Saturday. After Pat Valenzuela on Courageous Cat claimed foul, the stewards – following a long inquiry – left Goldi’s number up when she finished third, losing her bid to win the Mile for the fourth straight year.
Yet even before Valenzuela lodged his claim, the commentators on ESPN noted that Goldikova might be disqualified. The head-on replay showed that jockey Olivier Peslier, trapped behind horses in the stretch and desperate for running room, took a hard right turn on Goldikova, shouldering aside Courageous Cat, bumping him out to cause a chain reaction that affected several other horses. Since Courageous Cat finished last of 13, Goldikova should have been taken down and placed behind him.
The stewards, though, said there was not “convincing evidence” of a foul, and that pressure was also being applied to Courageous Cat from outside. And the official Equibase chart footnote makes no mention at all of Goldikova bumping anyone – although it does note that “Courageous Cat…was bumped when in close causing a chain reaction.”
Reminds you of those three wise monkeys: See no ever, hear no evil, speak no evil.