Coach says Orange have room to improve despite first Top 25 ranking in two decades.
Horse of Year candidate at 5-2 odds for $6M race
Accelerate, the California-based 5-year-old who has won five of six starts this year, is the 5-2 morningline favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic after drawing the far outside No. 14 post for the $6 million race.
West Coast, one of two entries trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, is the 5-1 second choice after drawing the No. 7 post on Monday. He will start to the right of stablemate Mckinzie, the co-third choice with Mind Your Biscuits (No. 11 post) at 6-1 odds. Mckinzie’s jockey is Hall of Famer Mike Smith, who rode Justify to this year’s Triple Crown before the colt was retired this summer with an ankle issue.
While Justify’s absence left the Breeders’ Cup’s marquee race without horse racing’s most notable star, it features entries that could challenge him for Horse of the Year honors. Accelerate arrives at Churchill Downs with a three-race win streak by a combined 19 lengths.
Accelerate’s most recent victory came by 21/4 lengths over West Coast in the Awesome Again Stakes on Sept. 29 at Santa Anita. Though he beat a horse coming off a 6-month layoff, the victory demonstrated how strong Accelerate has become since a ninth-place run in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
The next step is winning the Cup Classic and staking a claim as the year’s top thoroughbred.
“He looks great to me,” trainer John Sadler said of Accelerate. “He should make a good trip on Saturday.”
West Coast and Mckinzie stand poised to challenge Accelerate and maybe give Baffert his fourth Cup Classic victory in five years.
Mckinzie was just as impressive in returning from 6 months off as the 3-year-old won the Pennsylvania Derby by 13/4 lengths on Sept. 22 with Smith aboard.
Baffert now hopes for Accelerate and Mckinzie to separate from the field in the Classic — if they can create space from each other coming out of the gate.
“I wish they weren’t next to each other,” said the trainer, who has another eligible entry in Collected. “I would’ve liked Mckinzie a little further out, would’ve liked the 14 (post) with him, something like that. He’s not one that f lies out of the gate.”