Nine Previous Winners Pre-Entered in 2017 Breeders' Cup
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Photo: Chad B. Harmon
Defending Breeders' Cup Classic winner Arrogate will face Gun Runner in this year's Classic
Led by defending Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Arrogate and four-time grade 1 winner Gun Runner, an all-star international cast of 187 of the world's best Thoroughbreds—including a record 46 from overseas led by defending Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) winner Highland Reel—have been pre-entered for the 2017 Breeders' Cup World Championships.
Complete Breeders' Cup Pre-Entries
The 34th Breeders' Cup World Championships, consisting of 13 grade 1 races with purses and awards totaling more than $28 million, will be held for the first time at Del Mar, on Friday, Nov. 3 and Saturday, Nov. 4. There will be four Breeders' Cup races on Championship Friday and nine Breeders' Cup races on Championship Saturday. The Breeders' Cup will be televised live by NBCSN and NBC.
Among the statistical highlights in this year's pre-entries, a total of seven races are oversubscribed with more than 14 horses, and more than 12 in the Turf Sprint (G1T). There are 50 horses who qualified for automatic starting positions through the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series that have been pre-entered. Aidan O'Brien has pre-entered 14 horses, the most among trainers—one more than Chad Brown. Coolmore-associated partnerships lead all owners with 14 horses pre-entered.
This year's Breeders' Cup features nine returning or former winners in Arrogate, Highland Reel, Drefong, Oscar Performance, Lady Eli, Champagne Room, Queen's Trust, Finest City, and Mongolian Saturday.
The $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic, the climactic event of the Championships, will be run on the main track at 1 1/4 miles with a first-place owner's prize of $3.3 million and with purse payouts to eighth place. It will be televised by NBC.
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has pre-entered five horses for the Classic, which would be a record for a Breeders' Cup trainer if all start, breaking the mark of three each for Bill Mott in 2012 and the late Bobby Frankel in 1993. Baffert, who has 14 Breeders' Cup wins, will be shooting for his fourth consecutive Classic, having trained the past three winners Bayern , American Pharoah , and Arrogate.
"It's an exciting two days; the atmosphere is great, especially when you have it on the West Coast because you know you're going to have good weather," Baffert said. "When you go somewhere else and it's rainy, and sloppy and cold, that takes it out of it. There's nothing like Breeders' Cup on the West Coast. ... It's important that we have these big-money races because that's what gets people involved in racing. The bigger the pot, the better the racing."
Juddmonte Farm's 4-year-old Arrogate defeated California Chrome in a dramatic finish in the 2016 Classic at Santa Anita Park and was later voted champion 3-year-old male and named the Longines World's Best Racehorse. This year Arrogate rolled to consecutive victories in the Pegasus World Cup Invitationial Stakes (G1) and the Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline (G1).
Since returning from Dubai, the gray son of 1995 Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) winner Unbridled's Song has lost two straight races, finishing fourth at 1-20 odds in the TVG San Diego Handicap (G2) at Del Mar in July and second there Aug. 19 to stablemate Collected in the $ 1 million TVG Pacific Classic Stakes (G1). Arrogate, ridden by Breeders' Cup wins leader Mike Smith, will try to lead Arrogate to a consecutive Classic score, which has only been achieved by Tiznow in 2000-01.
The other horses Baffert entered in the Classic are Collected, Cupid, Mubtaahij, and West Coast. Baffert is likely to start four horses in the Classic as Cupid's first preference is the Dirt Mile.
Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm's Gun Runner finished second to Arrogate in the Dubai World Cup, but has ascended to the top of the division since then, reeling off consecutive grade 1 wins starting with Churchill Downs' "Win and You're In" Stephen Foster Handicap (G1) in June. He followed that win with a score in the Whitney Stakes (G1), another Classic "Win and You're In" in August, and will enter off a dominant 10 1/4-length victory in the Woodward Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) Sept. 2. Trained by Steve Asmussen, who saddled Curlin to victory in the 2007 Classic, Gun Runner is a 4-year-old son of Candy Ride and is 10-for-17 overall, but 0-for-3 at 1 1/4 miles.
On Championship Friday, Hronis Racing's Stellar Wind will hope the third time's a charm when she headlines the $2 million Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff at 1 1/8 miles. The 5-year-old daughter of Curlin was second in the Distaff at Keeneland in 2015 and fourth at Santa Anita last year for trainer John Sadler, but has taken her game to a new level and will enter undefeated in three grade 1 starts this year.
A maximum of 14 starters are allowed in each of the 13 Breeders' Cup World Championships races with the exception of the Turf Sprint, which is limited to 12 starters. Breeders' Cup Limited has adopted a field selection system to select runners in the event fields that are oversubscribed.
This system ranks horses in order of preference based on (i) Breeders' Cup Challenge race winners, (ii) the Breeders' Cup point system, and (iii) the judgment of a panel of racing experts. The combination of Challenge winners and point earners totals to seven (or six) to establish the automatic qualifiers. The field selection system was implemented following the taking of pre-entries Oct. 23 to officially rank the oversubscribed fields.
The Racing Secretaries and Directors Panel (the "Panel") ranked all horses pre-entered in the oversubscribed races. After pre-entry, any vacancies in the fields will be filled by horses in order of panel preference. Entry for the Breeders' Cup World Championships races will be Monday, Oct. 30, by 10 a.m. (PT). At the time of entry, a maximum of 14 horses (or 12) will be accepted for each race based on the order of preference established at pre-entry.
There will be up to two also-eligible horses for each Championship race. The also-eligible horses will be designated in accordance with the Breeders' Cup Racing Directors/Secretaries Panel's order of preference for each Championship race that is oversubscribed at the time of entry. Scratch time for all Championships races to be contested on both Championship Friday and Championship Saturday will be 8 a.m. PT, Friday, Nov. 3.