Breeders' Cup Update, Top Contenders and More Graded Stakes
by Steve Davidowitz | Oct 7 2011
There was very good news and some bad news on both coasts last weekend as more than a dozen Graded stakes were run at
Santa Anita Park and
Belmont Park involving prominent
Breeders’ Cup contenders. That said, there will be another round of Graded stakes this weekend at Belmont, Santa Anita and
Keeneland, all pointing towards the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4 and 5.
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At Belmont last weekend, last year’s 2-year-old champion UNCLE MO, back in great health from his bout with a liver disease that kept him out of the 2011 Triple Crown, was an awesome winner of the Kelso mile over the good sprinter-miler JACKSON BEND. The clocking was fast (1:33.40) and the 118 Beyer Speed Figure was the fastest since 2010 BC Sprint winner BIG DRAMA earned a 120 in a 6 furlong race at Gulfstream Park in January.
“Uncle Mo is a brilliant horse,” owner Mike Repole told Steve Byk on his popular satellite radio show Wednesday morning, “and he showed his brilliance in the Kelso.”
Repole said that he is going to run Uncle Mo in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at 10 furlongs off his two race summer-fall campaign that included only his sharp second place finish to CALEB’S POSSE in the 7 furlong King’s Bishop at Saratoga on Aug. 27 and his dominating win in the one mile Kelso on Saturday.
Not too many horses in my lifetime have prepared for a 1-1/4 mile, world class race via such a skimpy campaign. But Uncle Mo has enormous talent and the attempt is justified even though he would be a 1-2 shot in the BC Dirt Mile.
Among the horses he probably will meet in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 will be an all-star cast of horses who have won most of the biggest races this year: TO HONOR AND SERVE, for example, winner of the Pennsylvania Derby; TIZWAY, winner of a pair of Grade-1 races in NY this year; plus three of the most important winners of major stakes this past Saturday: FLAT OUT, winner of the 10 furlong, Grade-1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont; GAME ON DUDE, winner of the nine furlong Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita Park, and the 4-year-old filly HAVE DE GRACE, winner of the 1-1/8 mile Beldame at Belmont on the same Belmont card that Flat Out and Uncle Mo won their respective races.
There were several other important stakes of course, but there were some disappointing outcomes for some of the stars of the spring and summer who no longer can be considered threats in next month’s Breeders’ Cup races. For instance, about 24 hours after the top Irish bred turf horse won the 1-1/2 mile, G-1 Joe Hirsch Invitational on the rich Saturday card at Belmont, he was scratched from the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf with a leg injury. Too bad for a high quality horse who had won all three of his American G-1 races this year.
At Santa Anita on Saturday, the 4-year-old filly BLIND LUCK – last seen scoring a gut wrenching, nose victory over Havre De Grace in the Delaware Handicap, July 16 – showed that she had not fully recovered all her form while finishing dead last in the Lady’s Secret Stakes. The race was narrowly won by the 3-year-old ZAZU, with the 5-year-old mare ULTRA BLEND fighting hard to the wire, as both graduated with credentials for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, on Nov. 4. As for Blind Luck, Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said that his terrific filly is done for the year.
Another disappointment occurred when the Bob Baffert trained EUROEARS was bothered at the start of the 6 furlong Vosburgh at Belmont to lose all chance and leave his status in doubt for the $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint. The surprise winner GIANT RYAN actually was racking up his sixth straight score while taking advantage of a speed friendly racing surface that was sealed when rain fell in NY on Friday. The win, tarnished by the problems Euorears encountered and by the overnight scratching of the race’s big star, BIG DRAMA, who caught a sudden fever, probably will have little bearing on America’s richest and most important sprint race.
On Sunday, the versatile multiple stakes winning ACCLAMATION returned to score a typical wire to wire victory in the 1-1/4 mile, G-2 Clement Hirsch Turf Stakes to leave his connections with an intriguing dilemma.
Should he go in the 1-1/4 mile BC Classic on dirt which would give him a shot at a potential Horse of the Year Award, or be kept away from Uncle Mo, Tizway, Havre de Grace, Flat Out to run instead against top flight European turf stars in the $3 million, 1-1/2 mile Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Right now, he has demonstrated equal talent on both racing surfaces, but the decision might come down to the weather in Louisville during Breeders’ Cup week.
“If it rains and the course is soft, we will shift to run on dirt in the Classic,” trainer Don Warren said. “He wants a course he can handle and soft turf isn’t it.”
What horseplayers want are more races like we saw last weekend and that’s exactly what we’re going to get this weekend at three of America’s best tracks and at Churchill Downs next month.
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