Breeders' Cup Preview

Believe in Belief - Shared Belief can win the Breeders' Cup Classic

With the loss of some big names, this year’s Breeders’ Cup has encountered similar problems to Ascot’s own Champions’ Day, however much like with that event we still look set for an incredible weekend of racing.

Time has conspired against me somewhat this week preventing me from going quite as in depth as I would like on every race – I did however get Mile and Juvenile previews up last week which you can view by clicking the respective links – so I’ll simply have to put up my fancies for the weekend and try to explain why I’ve backed them.

Starting on the Friday, and first up we have the Dirt Mile and Goldencents. Last year’s winner is my idea of the weekend’s banker and providing he can get out and get on to the lead from his draw in one then he should take some stopping once again.

His form this season might not look all that on paper but that doesn’t tell the whole story and he’s been running some mighty figures in defeat with legitimate excuses when coming up short.

Forget the controversy surrounding his trainer, it is essentially just a name change and nothing else, Goldencents can become yet another horse to back up at the Breeders’ Cup, and though not all out disastrous it will be a disappointing start to the weekend if he’s beaten.

Breeders' Cup 2013 Preview

Verry Good - Verrazano can land the Dirt Mile to start Breeders' Cup weekend with a bang

This weekend the 29th Breeders’ Cup world championships will take place at beautiful Santa Anita in California.

It’s a weekend of the year that I always truly look forward to and this year is no different, with numerous other countries and courses trying to emulate the model the meeting has been somewhat diluted in recent years, at least on these shores, but for me it is still the original and the best and no one but no one does this sort of thing better than the Americans.

There’s been some incredible races over the weekend in recent years and we could be set to usher some more great memories in to the annuls of history this coming Friday and Saturday.

With fourteen races over the two days there’s a lot to study going in to the weekend so for the purposes of this preview I’m going to stick to the races in which I have a strong ante-post conviction, however I will still take them in their running order over the two days.