So, who will emerge as Horse of the Year?
ARCADIA » The Breeders' Cup is meant to answer questions, to identify an American Horse of the Year, to reveal stars of the future, to neatly sum up a racing season.
Maybe this Breeders' Cup did. Maybe this Breeders' Cup didn't. Well, that must mean it didn't.
Which is fine, because it gives thoroughbred racing fans — and others — more to talk about even after the sweeping up is done at Santa Anita Park.
When White Abarrio won the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic, he capped a week that raised or reheated more issues than it settled.
Starting with the most basic: Who is the best horse on the continent in 2023?
Usually the Classic settles that. A year ago at Keeneland, in Lexington, Ky., it was a crowning procession for romping winner Flightline, who couldn't lose the Classic and probably couldn't have lost the Horse of the Year vote by racing journalists and executives even if he did. Five of the past eight Classic winners have been named Horse of the Year.
This time it was supposed to be decided definitively if Arcangelo, the presumptive favorite, added to his Belmont and Travers Stakes wins by capturing the Classic.
But then Arcangelo was scratched, the day after being entered on Monday, because a hindhoof problem wasn't going to go away in time. The 3-year-old colt left the championship door open.
Elite Power? The 5-year-old horse's repeat victory in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint was his fourth win in five starts and second in a Grade I. But even great sprinters don't win Horse of the Year. Next.
Up to the Mark? The 4-yearold colt's trainer, Todd Pletcher, had been talking him up for the sport's top championship, noting that no American horse had more than his three Grade I victories this year. But Up to the Mark ran second in the $4 million Breeders' Cup Turf on Saturday. Finishing lapped on to Auguste Rodin, a global superstar from Britain, didn't diminish Up to the Mark's reputation, but it didn't polish it.
Cody's Wish? Now we're talking. The 4-year-old colt's repeat victory in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile was his fourth in five starts this year, including three Grade I wins, with wins on three racing circuits. His win Saturday was the most popular of the day. The horse's connection with Cody Dorman, a young man from Kentucky born with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome makes him the kind of story the sport likes to promote.
Idiomatic? There we might have the champ. She's a filly, a stout 4-year-old, and females don't often win Horse of the Year in seasons when they didn't beat males. But her work against fellow females is exemplary: After a hard-earned victory in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff on Saturday, she has nine starts, eight wins, three Grade I's, at five different distances, on four different circuits. Her durability and consistency make her a lot of what American racehorses aren't these days.
“Listen, I think she definitely deserves some votes for Horse of the Year,” said her trainer, Brad Cox. “It's a serious record. Once again, it's Horse of the Year, not horse of the fall, horse of the summer, horse of the spring, or horse of the Breeders' Cup. She has had a tremendous year from start to finish. Today was just icing on the cake.”
And we have to ask: White Abarrio? The 4-year-old colt is the horse of the late season, winning the Whitney at Saratoga and now the Breeders' Cup Classic, giving him three wins in five starts, two Grade I's, at three distances on three circuits. But he didn't put the Horse of the Year question to bed. Nobody in this Classic could have.
“I hope this horse, after this race, gets the respect he deserves,” is the boldest declaration Clint Cornett, a part-owner, would make.
Hanging over White Abarrio's story on this hazy Saturday afternoon was the story of his trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr.
Maybe it does, at that, sum up the horse-racing year, or any recent horse-racing year. White Abarrio is Dutrow's first top horse since he returned in January from a 10-year suspension handed down by the New York Racing Association for repeated violations, among them the admitted use of a steroid on 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown. This, at a time when the sport is trying to put away questions about its drug and animal-welfare practices, intensified during this Breeders' Cup week by the fatal breakdown of Geaux Rocket Ride and sudden death of Practical Move in morning training.
Those questions weren't answered either way at this Breeders' Cup. They simply go on.
The 40th Breeders' Cup did deliver compelling racing by outstanding horses and jockeys. It did deliver an early favorite for the 2024 Kentucky Derby in Fierceness, impressive winner of Friday's Breeders' Cup Juvenile. It did whet the appetite for more next year when the Breeders' Cup returns to Del Mar.
If it didn't clearly identify a Horse of the Year, well, it will be fun for a while to debate who's best in the sport instead of what's wrong with it.