Sunday, July 06, 2008
Breeders’ Cup to Offer Ordinary Horses Big Bucks
(CHICAGO, IL – July 7, 2008) Now is a good time to buy that thoroughbred you’ve wanted. There is so much money up for grabs at the racetracks and so few horses that are good enough to go after it that even a decent sort can become an over-achiever. Can you remember a time when the quality was this sparse and the prize money this high?
This past weekend began the process of developing Breeders’ Cup fields via the Breeders’ Cup Challenge. The “win and you’re in” scheme qualified the winners of the $750,000 United Nations Stakes and the $300,000 Salvator Mile Stakes, both at Monmouth Park. Neither may ever enter the starting gate at Santa Anita and, if one does, then the Breeders’ Cup is going to look more like the Claiming Crown than the World Thoroughbred Championships.
Stealing a Grade 1 stakes at Monmouth was a terrific achievement for Presious Passion, jockey Eddie Castro and trainer Mary Hartman. The race that they captured has been won by such luminaries as Round Table (1959), Dr. Fager (1968), Halo (1974), Manila (1998, 1987) and Sandpit (1995, 1996). For Hartman, who has been training horses on her own for the last decade and has worked on the backstretch for twice that long, it was her first Grade 1 start, and, obviously, her first Grade 1 victory.
Nothing, as a matter of fact, is an apt way to describe the highly-touted false favorite Champs Elysees. A close relative to Danehill, Danzig and Northern Dancer, the Bobby Frankel-trained runner, at 11-10, was supposed to win the United Nations, just as he was supposed to win the Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap in June, the Jim Murray in May, the Santa Anita Handicap in March and the Hollywood Turf Cup in December. Now a record like that doesn’t suggest Breeders’ Cup, does it?
The field for the Salvator Mile was stronger than the United Nations’, but its winner isn’t headed for sunny SoCal either. Indeed, winning the race qualified Notional, a son of Excess, for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. But Santa Anita doesn’t have a dirt track; it has a synthetic surface. Therefore, Gotcha Gold, the horse that finished second, is more likely to be a Breeders’ Cup contender.
On the other hand, give Notional his due. He was one of the best 3-year-olds leading up to the Kentucky Derby last year before suffering an injury that kept him off the Triple Crown trail. He won the Gr. 2 San Rafael and the Gr. 3 Risen Star before finishing second in the Gr. 1 Florida Derby. But this year, as a 4-year-old, he hit the board only once in four starts before Monmouth. Aha, there you have it. See the link? Obviously, the problem with Notional before Saturday was that all these recent starts were on grass or synthetic - a racing surface he doesn't care for.
The affinity between Notional and dirt notwithstanding, the owners and trainers of the first two thoroughbreds listed among the top in the most recent NTRA poll have already declared out of the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Curlin will race in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe instead of the Classic. Heatseeker’s been retired. Big Brown, number three in the poll, is headed for the Classic, although his molasses-slow workout last week portends a mysterious pre-stallion illness. It’ll happen either before he runs his next race or after it. Note, the word Haskell is missing.
Of the next seven - Zanyetta, Benny the Bull, Einstein, Ginger Punch, Kip Deville, Divine Park and Da’Tara, only Einstein and Da’ Tara can handle a mile and a quarter on faux dirt. Who then, other than Casino Drive, can make this year’s Classic a classic? The Europeans, of course - that’s who.
The conventional belief is that cool climate venues encourage the Euros more than the California tracks. In the past, the biggest contingents of foreign-based horses have shown up at Belmont Park and Churchill Downs. But with a synthetic surface to run on, many European trainers are thinking the soft crop of Americans would be easy to pick on. Horses accustomed to grass seem to like running on rubber bands and sand. Although the pound is worth twice what the dollar is, money is money, and its value is relative to the ease in accumulating it.
The Breeders’ Cup Ltd. is doing all in its power to prop up the American-trained horses for its World Thoroughbred Championships. But this most amazing event has been watered down by the expansion of its races at the most inopportune time. The Horse of the Year has its sights set on Paris. A miserable bunch of 3-year-olds lie in wait for Big Brown to defect from the Classic. And the leftover horses (those not good enough for early retirement) leave a taste in the mouth that is bitter.
In the next 100 days, perhaps the Breeders’ Cup Challenge will identify a superstar. But it’s more likely that he’ll be arriving in California from afar.
Written by Vic Zast - Comments (0)
