Familiar faces at the Breeders’ Cup
For the first time since 2011, the Breeders’ Cup will be without Obviously. The nine-year-old gelding, who was retired in June with nine graded-stakes victories and earnings of more than $2.3 million, ran in five straight Breeders’ Cups between 2012 and 2016. After four starts in the Mile (his best finish was a third in 2012), the Irish-bred switched to the Turf Sprint, a race he won by a nose.
No horse will be running in its fifth Breeders’ Cup next month at Del Mar. At least four possible starters, however – Stellar Wind, Keen Ice, Limousine Liberal and Pure Sensation – will be running in their third. In addition, at least six, and possibly as many as eight, winners at last year’s Cup may be back this year: Arrogate, Drefong, Oscar Performance, Highland Reel, Finest City, Queen’s Trust, Champagne Room and New Money Honey. The five discussed below will be competing in the same Breeders’ Cup race as they did in 2016.
The first returnee is Arrogate. The question is, “which Arrogate will show up?” Will it be the wonder horse who stormed through last year’s Travers and BC Classic and this year’s Pegasus World Cup and Dubai World Cup? Or it will be the more ordinary horse who came up short in his two outings this summer at Del Mar? Arrogate has been
working well for the Classic, but the fact that his connections have announced that it will be his final race – and that he won’t attempt to repeat in the Pegasus and DWC – may indicate they feel he doesn’t have much more to give.
Drefong, who will attempt to defend his title in the Sprint, has also given off mixed signals. After winning the 2016 King’s Bishop and Sprint on his way to an Eclipse Award, the fouryear-old colt threw in a clunker in his 2017 debut, finishing last in the Bing Crosby Handicap on July 29. A month later, returning to Saratoga, he torched a decent field of older sprinters in the Forego. That performance seemed to indicate that Drefong was back to his old self. But when a horse races only three times in 14 months, questions remain.
Highland Reel, the gateto-wire winner of the 2016 Turf, is having another strong year, with Group 1 wins in the Coronation Cup and Prince of Wales’s Stakes. Last out, he was unable to handle Enable in the King George VI, but then no horse has had any luck versus the sophomore filly sensation during her five-race (all Group 1s) winning streak. A victory on Nov. 4 would give Highland Reel seven wins on three continents at racing’s highest level. It would also allow him to join fellow Europeans High Chaparral and Conduit as the only back-toback winners of the Turf.
Last year, coming into the Breeders’ Cup with just one win in seven starts, Finest City won the Filly & Mare
Sprint and ended up with an Eclipse Award. This year she again comes in with a single victory, the Santa Maria Handicap back on Jan. 21. The five-year-old mare has been keeping top company, however – placing behind Stellar Wind, Vale Dori and Paulassilverlining – and in a wide-open Filly & Mare Sprint, she has as good a chance as anybody.
When Queen’s Trust won the 2016 Filly & Mare Turf, nosing out favored Lady Eli in the final jump, it was her first victory since breaking
her maiden 14 months earlier. Although the four-yearold British-bred has not won since last year’s Breeders’ Cup, she has been tangling with some of Europe’s best, running behind the likes of Enable, Winter and Highland Reel. If Queen’s Trust makes this year’s Filly & Mare Turf, Lady Eli will probably be waiting for her.