Breeders’ Cup attracts strong European challenge on turf
Having set records in Santa Anita for the past two years in the Breeders’ Cup, the European challenge for this season’s meeting will be hoping to avoid they fate they met when it was held at Churchill Downs in 1998.
Then the best they could muster collectively manage was a third place for Swain in the Classic – when Frankie Dettori claimed that he had been blinded by the grandstand lights as Swain finished a length behind Awesome Again.
It will be pushing their luck to believe that they can achieve the awesome results of the last two meetings, where 11 victories pushed the European total to 42 in the 26-year history of the series, not least because – having reverted to the dirt for the synthetic surface at Santa Anita – there are only four entries in the races not run on grass from what is likely to be about 25 runners.
Two years after Raven’s Pass shocked American racing, when he beat Curlin et al to win the Classic, there will be no European runner when Zenyatta attempts to end her career with a perfect 20-20 racing record in the Classic.
Goldikova looks likely to dominate in the Mile and the two best chances of a British winner rest with runners in the colours of Prince Khalid Abdullah.
Abdullah has been a staunch supporter of the Breeders’ Cup, with runners based on both sides of the Atlantic, and looks to have strong chances as Midday attempts to defend her crown in the Filly & Mare Turf while Workforce will be trying to achieve an unprecedented treble by adding the Turf to his victories in the Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Abdullah has already won 16 Group or Grade One races so far this year and his racing manager, Teddy Grimthorpe, had a quiet air of confidence of the two more wins required to match the owner’s best-ever season.
The switch in courses means that the distance of the Filly & Mare Turf has been increased from 10 to 11 furlongs but Grimthope feels that will simply play further to the strengths of Henry Cecil’s filly, who has already won three times at championship level this year in the Nassau Stakes, Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille. “She’s pretty versatile and this is her optimum distance,” he said.
“What you see is really what you get. She was tremendously impressive at York, and beat all the top fillies there and repeated that in the Vermeille. I saw her work on Saturday and she looked in really good shape.”
Cecil has been targeting the Breeders’ Cup for some time, eschewing the chance of running in the Arc even when it looked as though Workforce might be a doubtful runner. As it was Sir Michael Stoute’s Derby winner came through like the force of old, after a lacklustre run in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July, to win in style in Paris three weeks ago.
Connections only decided to allow the colt to take his chance after coming through a gallop at Newmarket on Saturday but Grimthorpe believes he could be capable of marinating Europe’s dominance of a race they have won four times in the last five years.
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