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| Wise Move - Wise Dan leads the American charge at the Breeder's Cup this weekend. |
On Friday and Saturday the 2nd and 3rd of November the top horses in North America, and some of the best horses from around the world, will descend on the beautiful Santa Anita Park racetrack in California for the annual thoroughbred World Championships.
Over the years the Breeder’s Cup has given some fantastic, unforgettable and iconic moments and the coverage of this spectacular event really is second to none. This year’s Breeder’s Cup looks set to be another incredible instalment with some of the world’s best race horses set to battle it out round the turns of Santa Anita.
The British & Irish challenge is typically strong but with Longchamp’s Arc meeting and Champions Day so close to the American racing showpiece the transatlantic raiding party is no longer quite what it used to be. Although we have some of our best in this year’s raiding party, 2012 looks to me to be a year where the home team will dominate proceedings.
Here I’m going to take a look at some of the main races to take place over the two days and try and pick out the likeliest winner and/or best bets for each of them.
We’ll start with the big one the Breeder’s Cup Classic which gave us a thriller last year as Drosselmeyer reeled in Game On Dude close to home to land the $5 million prize.
This year Game On Dude is back again and bids to go one better under a new jockey and looks to have a fantastic chance of atoning for last year’s near miss.
Make no mistake, the now retired Chantal Sutherland was partly responsible for the Dude’s popularity but she was also responsible for his only loss since his Dubai World Cup flop when drawn in the car park, as she dropped a rein on the run-in in the Pacific Classic as Dullahan collared Game On Dude at the wire.
Rafael Bejarano is a fantastic replacement and definitely worth more confidence in the horse as he bids to take his perfect record round Santa Anita to 6 out of 6.
Game On Dude is made for the Classic with 1m2f being his trip and him being a proper dirt horse – that Pacific Classic defeat was on polytrack – the only downside to him this year is he is a worthy favourite and looks ample short enough at 2/1.
He certainly appeals as the most likely winner though, but there isn’t much value left now at that price with him having shortened up dramatically over the last couple of weeks.
If you perhaps wanted a bit of value for the race then Mucho Macho Man ridden by that man Mike Smith, who certainly knows how to make a Breeder’s Cup headline or two, could be the alternative.
Third in the Kentucky Derby last season he contested all three of the US classics finishing down the field in the Preakness and the Belmont.
This year though he’s been better than ever, two of his wins this season have been a G2 level and he was unlucky not to finally land a G1 when a neck second in the Woodward last time out when hampered.
It’s a big ask for him to win his first G1 race in the Breeder’s Cup Classic but he’s been on the upgrade this year and at the prices – Mucho Macho Man is currently 8/1 - looks a better value bet than Game On Dude, in spite of that horse looking like a pretty good thing. Of the others Ron The Greek (8/1) and Fort Larned (9/1) were catapulted to the head of the ante-post market for the race on the back of good performances earlier in the year but both need to leave disappointing runs last time out behind them.
While last year’s fifth Flat Out (6/1) looked to be back to his best last time out when winning on Super Saturday at Belmont and if healthy would have to have a good chance of getting in the money; the stage looks set though for Game On Dude to right last year’s loss and become the Champion he is capable of being, if he fails to get the job done Mucho Macho Man could be the value alternative to take home the multi-million dollar purse.
Perhaps even more so than the Classic this year the race that falls just before it on the card on Saturday night could be the most anticipated.
This year’s Breeder’s Cup Mile – also known as the Goldikova Benefit Stakes in previous years – looks a race of real intrigue as arguably North America’s top horse Wise Dan takes on arguably Britain’s best horse following Frankel’s retirement in Excelebration.
The pair look closely matched if you take a line through Cityscape as Wise Dan smashed up the Dubai winner in the Woodbine Mile while Excelebration slaughtered that same rival with his dominant display in the QEII on Champions Day.
I love Excelebration, I think he’s a fantastic horse and would have been such a wonderful champion in any other lifetime had he not been born in the same year as Frankel.
He’s still achieved a great deal on the track in spite of having run in to the wonder horse so many times and is, on the back of that Ascot win, a worthy favourite (6/4) to really step out of Frankel’s shadow with a win on a stage such as this.
However I’ll be siding with Wise Dan here, based on both his price (11/4) and the fact that he has home turf advantage. We’ve seen European horses travel over and perform well before so it’s a little bit of a straw clutch but there are enough doubts about the travelling and the different climate and time for me to think that the proven US performer is the better play in what looks a wonderful renewal of the race.
A race the Europeans managed to claim last year was the Breeder’s Cup Turf as St. Nicholas Abbey (3/1) registered a famous win for O’Briens Joseph and Aidan, and the horse once talked up as the next Sea The Stars bids to repeat that success this year albeit in a different state.
The European horses tend to dominate the Turf and have won the last four renewals, so perhaps surprisingly a US-based horse is disputing favouritism at present with last year’s winner.
Point Of Entry (10/3) is coming in to the race with five straight wins under his belt (including three consecutive G1 races) and offers the home team real hope that they can finally wrestle the European’s stranglehold on this race away from them.
The Aga Khan’s Shareta (5/1) is the other real contender for this race having looked like holding a huge chance in this year’s Arc before the ground came up against her. The ground here should suit her but the Arc will have left a mark and it’s whether that plus the long journey will take its toll, I’d say she’s shorter than she should be based on that.
St. Nicholas Abbey could arguably have been more involved in the finish to this year’s King George under a better ride from Joseph, who whilst normally a consummate professional has by his own admission made a few errors on this horse this year.
Given a better ride he should be seen to the best of his ability after being destroyed by Frankel in the Juddmonte and then also showing a dislike for the ground in the Arc. He seemed to enjoy the twists and turns of a US track last year in this race – he’s previously won round Chester here don’t forget, but again the proximity of a particularly gruelling Arc is a big concern.
You may be starting to sense a common theme developing here, but once again I’m going to side with the US horse and plump for Point Of Entry for the Turf. Although he’s won several G1 races he’s not been beating proper G1 horses and will need to really step up if he’s going to dethrone St. Nicholas Abbey but he’s looked capable of doing just that and should be coming to the Breeder’s Cup in peak condition which, realistically, I don’t think you can say about his two main rivals.
Perhaps my favourite race on the Breeder’s Cup card is the Juvenile, which will also be run on the Saturday. Last year saw an absolute thriller as Union Rags just failed to claw back Hansen and this year we could be set to see the next great Triple Crown hope run in the shape of Shanghai Bobby (2/1).
He was dominant in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont last time out and his 5l winning margin didn’t even begin to do the dominance of the performance justice. He comes in to the race unbeaten and has been so impressive thus far that it’s just been announced that Coolmore have bought a 50% share in the colt.
He’s been destroying rivals on the east coast throughout his juvenile season and it looks like it will take a very smart two-year-old colt to beat him in Saturday’s $2 million Juvenile.
Beyond the potential travel chaos my one concern with him would be that he will be running without Lasix for the first time in the Juvenile due to the Breeder’s Cup’s ban on drugs in the two-year-old races and how he will handle this is anybody’s guess.
If he doesn’t need to be pumped full of drugs to win then he is by far and away the best horse in the race but it’s an unknown that could potentially be a fly in the ointment.
A horse that has run well and run well behind Shanghai Bobby without Lasix previously is Fortify for Godolphin USA, and although he’s a big price (16/1) we at least know he doesn’t need to be drugged up to run a good race. He could be the each-way play in the race given that we know pretty much the level that he should run to.
Bob Baffert’s Power Broker looks the main challenger to Shanghai Bobby on form and has to be feared in his own backyard but Shanghai Bobby has looked very special to date and providing the lack of Lasix doesn’t have an adverse effect on him he should be finishing this season as the top two-year-old in America.
Elsewhere on the Saturday I think Godolphin’s Emcee (4/1) looks to have a great chance in the Dirt Mile – there’d been some deliberation about which race he would end up in for the boys in blue but he goes in the Dirt Mile and the general consensus seems to be that is the right choice.
Whilst Groupie Doll (6/5) looks the banker of the night in the Filly and Mare Sprint having place on every single one of her runs this year including winning her last four.
On the Friday night the two really big races are the Filly and Mare Turf and the Ladies’ Classic.
In the Filly and Mare Turf I’m going to buck the trend of the rest of this piece and side with a European horse in John Gosden’s talented The Fugue (11/4).
Johnny G has a fine record at the Breeder’s Cup and Santa Anita is like a second home to him, The Fugue meanwhile has shown herself to be arguably the stand-out Filly of the Classic generation in 2012 so far and I believe she can go someway here to atoning for what at times has been a somewhat luckless season.
Her Nassau Stakes win over the trip she will tackle at Santa Anita was hugely impressive and if she can replicate anything close to that sort of effort across the pond she must go close. She’s been consistent throughout the season, even when encountering bad luck as in the Oaks and looks the most likely winner of the race on paper.
The European’s certainly look to have a great chance of taking home the spoils here with Roger Varian’s Nahrain (6/1), who has Breeder’s Cup experience having encountered bad luck of her own at Churchill last year, looking The Fugue’s main challenger.
David Simcock’s I’m A Dreamer (12/1) already a big race winner Stateside and French raider Ridasiyna (4/1) are the other major players in Friday’s penultimate race.
The final race on Friday’s card and the final race that I’m going to look at here is the Ladies’ Classic which looks an excellent opportunity for Royal Delta (5/2) to record back to back wins in the race.
Since disappointing in Dubai she’s looked as good as ever this year and she should be right there or thereabouts again. Some were touting her for the Classic itself which is usually a sign that the Ladies race should, in theory, be at her mercy.
There is stiff competition however from the likes of Cotillion 1-2 My Miss Aurelia (5/1) and the much-lauded former John Gosden inmate Questing (9/2). The former is still unbeaten and in spite of having a long lay-off through injury prior to the Cotillion looked as good as ever when beating Questing, albeit getting weight from her rival that day.
Questing’s Alabama Stakes win remains one of the top performances in America this season but now people are wise to her front-running style the jig may be up for her. If she was to try and go from the front again you certainly couldn’t write her off but the suspicion seems to be that this would serve only to set the race up for a horse with stamina like Royal Delta to come through and pick up the scraps.
With the likes of Grace Hall (14/1), Love And Pride (6/1) and Awesome Feather (5/1) also in the line-up this looks a fascinating race and should be a fitting end to the opening night of what will hopefully be another amazing two days of racing.
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