Ranking the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Races by entertainment value, in reverse order:
A well-meant, poorly executed idea:
The “Marathon”
In what universe is 1 3/4 miles on the dirt (or synthetic) a championship division? Who is this race for? Judging by the first two winners (Muhannak and Man of Iron) it is for undistinguished European handicap horses. Hands down, the worst of the new Breeders’ Cup races.
Developing stories:
Turf Sprint: The popularity explosion of turf sprints among America’s racing secretaries has reached epidemic status, and there is no cure in sight. I will be rooting for the filly Rose Catherine to run this field off their feet, if for no other reason than it might head off creation of the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf Sprint (G3) in 2012.
Filly & Mare Sprint: I liked it better when our best female sprinters went in the BC Sprint. But what this year’s F&M Sprint lacks in star power, it makes up for in depth. Prediction: the favorite will be 3-to-1 and this will be termed “a great betting race” by the commentators.
Dirt Mile: This division makes sense in theory, but it will steal some very good horses from the Sprint every year and might also hurt the Classic. The overlap created by the new races will be exaggerated in this era of shrinking foal crops.
Down year:
Sprint: The additions of the Filly & Mare Sprint and the Dirt Mile have really hurt this race, which also suffered from injuries to top contenders Majesticperfection and Discreetly Mine.
Juvenile Fillies: Injuries and a lack of anything truly outstanding makes this a sub-par edition of a historically great race.
Getting there:
The Juvenile Turf races: It seems the juvenile turf races top many people’s lists of new Breeders’ Cup races we didn’t need, but I disagree because:
A) I love turf racing
B) Unlike the Marathon, the juvenile turf races are catching on. Europeans trainers are supporting the races with talented horses, albeit a cut below their best. And the two-year-old turf division is developing in America.
If anything, combine the juvenile turf races into one. The filly turf race looks more compelling than the male version this year. Winter Memories is star material, and I’ve loved Kathmanblu ever since she closed for second in the PG Johnson at Saratoga (which this year featured one of the most speed biased turf courses I have ever seen)
Lives up to the Breeders’ Cup name
Ladies Classic: Kentucky Oaks winner Blind Luck takes on elders. Worth seeing in the theater. (Name should be changed back to Distaff though.)
Turf: Quietly, this race drew the top rated turf horse in the world, Workforce, plus Arc de Triomphe troubled fourth-place finisher Behkabad. Sleeper Al Khali could be the U.S.’s best hope to hit the board.
Potentially great
Filly & Mare Turf: 2009 winner Midday is better than ever, winning three Group 1’s in a row. Her competition includes French Group 1 winner Plumania and Japanese Group 1 winner Red Desire. Not to mention 2008 winner Forever Together, the improving three-year-old Harmonious, and many others.
Juvenile: For the first time since 2005, the winners of all five Grade 1 North American two-year-old races (for open company) meet in the Juvenile. Uncle Mo and Boys At Tosconova are potential stars, and I love the way Jaycito was striding at the wire in the Norfolk Stakes (G1). 2011 Triple Crown preview.
Hall of Fame
Mile: Goldikova is one of the best turf milers of all time, and this race drew a great field. Brilliant three-year-old Sydney’s Candy should be all alone on the lead, with Gio Ponti, Goldikova, Paco Boy, and Proviso revving up behind, waiting for the right time to pounce.
Goldikova has faced the difficult, ambitious career path that I wish Zenyatta had. She has won seven open company Grade 1’s to Zenyatta’s one, and has traveled the world. But I still expect the Mile will finish second in terms of drama and emotional impact to…
The Classic: The Classic stretch run is likely to be the moment of the year. And the winner is likely to be Horse of the Year.
A mare winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic twice and finishing her career a perfect 20-for-20? Unlike the 2009 result, that truly would be “un-be-leeevable.”
Showing posts with label Breeders' Cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Breeders' Cup. Show all posts
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Breeders' Cup should continue to rotate venue
Perhaps as early as this Thursday the Breeders' Cup board will make an important decision about the event's future.
If Breeders' Cup names a long-term or permanent host track (rumored to be Santa Anita), it will be a departure from one of the Cup's best traditions - a rotating venue.
A roaming Breeders' Cup has a communal feel to it, giving the whole industry a sense of ownership. A permanent site threatens to make it parochial.
The logical move for the immediate future is a geographically balanced, four-year rotation that roughly mirrors what the Cup has been doing the last 26 years: Churchill Downs-Belmont Park-Santa Anita-rotating random site.
This plan shares the year-end championship between the Midwest, East Coast, and West Coast, with an opportunity every fourth year to expand internationally or spotlight other American tracks.
No track hosted the Cup for two consecutive years until Santa Anita in 2008-'09. It was a puzzling move considering the controversy surrounding Santa Anita's synthetic main track, which not only has drainage problems but so far has not yielded a single Breeders' Cup winner that previously raced on dirt, the surface favored by American racing for more than 200 years.
That decision cost the Breeders' Cup (and the sport) a potential all-time great moment had Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta settled the Horse of the Year debate on the track. Rachel's owner Jess Jackson kept her out of the 2009 Cup because of Santa Anita's surface.
Imagine if Major League baseball announced the World Series will be played at Fenway Park every year, and they were replacing the stadium's dirt and grass with a new synthetic material that would favor a certain type of ballplayer. Or the NFL decided the Super Bowl always will be played at the Louisiana Superdome.
The Boston Red Sox and New Orleans Saints only make it to the championship once in a while. Horses based at a permanent Breeders' Cup site will be there every year. It would create a home field advantage that is unprecedented in major sports.
At a time when the industry needs to come together, an end to the Breeders' Cup rotation could further splinter it.
Rotating sites is part of the Cup's identity. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
If Breeders' Cup names a long-term or permanent host track (rumored to be Santa Anita), it will be a departure from one of the Cup's best traditions - a rotating venue.
A roaming Breeders' Cup has a communal feel to it, giving the whole industry a sense of ownership. A permanent site threatens to make it parochial.
The logical move for the immediate future is a geographically balanced, four-year rotation that roughly mirrors what the Cup has been doing the last 26 years: Churchill Downs-Belmont Park-Santa Anita-rotating random site.
This plan shares the year-end championship between the Midwest, East Coast, and West Coast, with an opportunity every fourth year to expand internationally or spotlight other American tracks.
No track hosted the Cup for two consecutive years until Santa Anita in 2008-'09. It was a puzzling move considering the controversy surrounding Santa Anita's synthetic main track, which not only has drainage problems but so far has not yielded a single Breeders' Cup winner that previously raced on dirt, the surface favored by American racing for more than 200 years.
That decision cost the Breeders' Cup (and the sport) a potential all-time great moment had Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta settled the Horse of the Year debate on the track. Rachel's owner Jess Jackson kept her out of the 2009 Cup because of Santa Anita's surface.
Imagine if Major League baseball announced the World Series will be played at Fenway Park every year, and they were replacing the stadium's dirt and grass with a new synthetic material that would favor a certain type of ballplayer. Or the NFL decided the Super Bowl always will be played at the Louisiana Superdome.
The Boston Red Sox and New Orleans Saints only make it to the championship once in a while. Horses based at a permanent Breeders' Cup site will be there every year. It would create a home field advantage that is unprecedented in major sports.
At a time when the industry needs to come together, an end to the Breeders' Cup rotation could further splinter it.
Rotating sites is part of the Cup's identity. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Breeders’ Cup: Our event is still going to be great
Breeders’ Cup officials hope Jess Jackson will change his mind about holding Rachel Alexandra out of the 2009 Breeders’ Cup World Championships.
But even if Jackson sticks to his position that Rachel will never again race on a synthetic surface, the Breeders’ Cup, at least publicly, is not sweating the decision.
“Our event is still going to be a great event,” said Breeders’ Cup Chief Marketing Officer Peter Land. “We’ll still have 80,000 to 100,000 people come. It’s still going to be a great television show and a great simulcast product.”
Jackson disagrees with the Breeders’ Cup’s decision to hold the event at Santa Anita Park, which has a synthetic Pro-Ride surface, for a second consecutive year. Jackson does not think the results of synthetic races are legitimate, nor does he think synthetics are safer than a well-maintained dirt surface.
Land and the management at Breeders’ Cup hope Jackson will change his mind before November 6-7.
“First of all it’s early. It’s only June, so we would hope that over the course of the summer it would be a shame if Jess didn’t have a change of heart,” Land said. “We obviously respect Jess and everything he’s done for the sport. He’s certainly a great sportsman. But more than anything else, we were surprised he would make an announcement this far out.”
Thanks to the synthetic experiment, American horses currently are competing on three different surfaces – dirt, turf, and synthetic. But no racetrack offers all three, so no matter where the Breeders’ Cup is held, it risks losing stars from one of them.
Land said he does not think surface should be that big of a deal.
“Some years it’s going to favor different horses on different tracks. It’s not unlike the PGA championships, some years the course will favor long hitters and some years it will favor putters,” Land said. “I think many sports in general have this built in testing mechanism that says if you’re a great champion you can persevere under conditions that might not be ideal.”
It would be nice if Land’s comparison with golf worked, but the reality is that very few horses are the same when they switch surfaces. Some great dirt horses have struggled to compete on the synthetics or turf. Just as many great European turf stars are a shadow of themselves when they try dirt.
When Breeders’ Cup committed to Santa Anita for two years it was a controversial decision, not only because no track had ever hosted two consecutive Cups, but because of how new and untested the synthetics were. Until the current American experiment, nowhere in the world had Grade 1 races been contested and world champions crowned on a synthetic track. Even in Europe, where synthetics are preferred to dirt, all the Group 1 races are on turf, compared to just a handful of Group 3’s on the synth.
Last year Europeans Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator ran first and second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), the first time in the race’s 25-year history that Europeans swept the exacta. Jackson’s entrant in the race – Horse of the Year Curlin – finished a disappointing fourth. Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride surface, which anecdotally at least favors turf horses over dirt horses, was seen as playing a major role in that result.
As the move to synthetics has alienated the connections of some American horses, it has won favor with the Europeans and helped Breeders’ Cup in its ongoing quest to become a true world championship. Land said he believes the net result is positive.
“We’re gonna have 150 of the best horses in the world competing this year. Are we going to lose a few American horses? Probably. But on balance, we might end up with more than 30 horses from Europe this year, and we’re a global championship televised all over the world,” Land said. “To have more horses from outside the United States competing I think is a good thing for the Breeders’ Cup and for the sport.”
But even if Jackson sticks to his position that Rachel will never again race on a synthetic surface, the Breeders’ Cup, at least publicly, is not sweating the decision.
“Our event is still going to be a great event,” said Breeders’ Cup Chief Marketing Officer Peter Land. “We’ll still have 80,000 to 100,000 people come. It’s still going to be a great television show and a great simulcast product.”
Jackson disagrees with the Breeders’ Cup’s decision to hold the event at Santa Anita Park, which has a synthetic Pro-Ride surface, for a second consecutive year. Jackson does not think the results of synthetic races are legitimate, nor does he think synthetics are safer than a well-maintained dirt surface.
Land and the management at Breeders’ Cup hope Jackson will change his mind before November 6-7.
“First of all it’s early. It’s only June, so we would hope that over the course of the summer it would be a shame if Jess didn’t have a change of heart,” Land said. “We obviously respect Jess and everything he’s done for the sport. He’s certainly a great sportsman. But more than anything else, we were surprised he would make an announcement this far out.”
Thanks to the synthetic experiment, American horses currently are competing on three different surfaces – dirt, turf, and synthetic. But no racetrack offers all three, so no matter where the Breeders’ Cup is held, it risks losing stars from one of them.
Land said he does not think surface should be that big of a deal.
“Some years it’s going to favor different horses on different tracks. It’s not unlike the PGA championships, some years the course will favor long hitters and some years it will favor putters,” Land said. “I think many sports in general have this built in testing mechanism that says if you’re a great champion you can persevere under conditions that might not be ideal.”
It would be nice if Land’s comparison with golf worked, but the reality is that very few horses are the same when they switch surfaces. Some great dirt horses have struggled to compete on the synthetics or turf. Just as many great European turf stars are a shadow of themselves when they try dirt.
When Breeders’ Cup committed to Santa Anita for two years it was a controversial decision, not only because no track had ever hosted two consecutive Cups, but because of how new and untested the synthetics were. Until the current American experiment, nowhere in the world had Grade 1 races been contested and world champions crowned on a synthetic track. Even in Europe, where synthetics are preferred to dirt, all the Group 1 races are on turf, compared to just a handful of Group 3’s on the synth.
Last year Europeans Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator ran first and second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), the first time in the race’s 25-year history that Europeans swept the exacta. Jackson’s entrant in the race – Horse of the Year Curlin – finished a disappointing fourth. Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride surface, which anecdotally at least favors turf horses over dirt horses, was seen as playing a major role in that result.
As the move to synthetics has alienated the connections of some American horses, it has won favor with the Europeans and helped Breeders’ Cup in its ongoing quest to become a true world championship. Land said he believes the net result is positive.
“We’re gonna have 150 of the best horses in the world competing this year. Are we going to lose a few American horses? Probably. But on balance, we might end up with more than 30 horses from Europe this year, and we’re a global championship televised all over the world,” Land said. “To have more horses from outside the United States competing I think is a good thing for the Breeders’ Cup and for the sport.”
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Racing must fix tote system
Amidst calls for technological upgrades to our antiquated tote system and better monitoring of wagering pools, the Association of Racing Commissioners International kicked off its annual meeting in Lexington on Tuesday.
Just 24 hours later we had another real life example of why the industry needs to take action on the issue. On Wednesday at New York City Off-Track Betting, $2 bets processed through AmTote were deposited into wagering pools as $200 bets.
The mistake affected pools at Aqueduct, Golden Gate Fields, Gulfstream Park, Indiana Downs, Keeneland Race Course, and Tampa Bay Downs. (story)
The horse racing industry made a lot of recommendations and promises to improve tote security in the aftermath of the Fix Six scandal at the Breeders' Cup in 2002, when an Autotote employee exploited non-existent security measures and delays in the bet processing system to alter losing tickets into winners.
What has really changed since then? Not nearly enough.
A few states have taken up the issue (story), but it's arguable whether any of the objectives in this memo from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association have been fully achieved.
I think the following quote from John Sabini, chairman of the New York State Racing & Wagering Board, may sum up a big part of the problem.
"They were going on and on about how no stone is left unturned to protect the tribes and protect the casinos, to make sure the casino companies don't lose a nickel, lock-down security," Sabini told Thoroughbred Times senior writer Frank Angst at a gaming conference last year.
"Then I come to horse racing, I'm new to this, and ... You hear a lot of, 'It can't really be done right.' And it dawned on me that the difference between the two is if you steal from a casino, you're stealing the casino's money. If you steal from a pari-mutuel pool, most of the time it's the bettors' money. So there's less of an urgency to it."
Just 24 hours later we had another real life example of why the industry needs to take action on the issue. On Wednesday at New York City Off-Track Betting, $2 bets processed through AmTote were deposited into wagering pools as $200 bets.
The mistake affected pools at Aqueduct, Golden Gate Fields, Gulfstream Park, Indiana Downs, Keeneland Race Course, and Tampa Bay Downs. (story)
The horse racing industry made a lot of recommendations and promises to improve tote security in the aftermath of the Fix Six scandal at the Breeders' Cup in 2002, when an Autotote employee exploited non-existent security measures and delays in the bet processing system to alter losing tickets into winners.
What has really changed since then? Not nearly enough.
A few states have taken up the issue (story), but it's arguable whether any of the objectives in this memo from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association have been fully achieved.
I think the following quote from John Sabini, chairman of the New York State Racing & Wagering Board, may sum up a big part of the problem.
"They were going on and on about how no stone is left unturned to protect the tribes and protect the casinos, to make sure the casino companies don't lose a nickel, lock-down security," Sabini told Thoroughbred Times senior writer Frank Angst at a gaming conference last year.
"Then I come to horse racing, I'm new to this, and ... You hear a lot of, 'It can't really be done right.' And it dawned on me that the difference between the two is if you steal from a casino, you're stealing the casino's money. If you steal from a pari-mutuel pool, most of the time it's the bettors' money. So there's less of an urgency to it."
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