ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Michael Stoute and Harry Herbert of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing confirmed Telescope’s next start in a conversation after the colt had finished third in the Grade 1 Juddmonte International Stakes at York, England, in August. They planned to send Telescope to California for the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita.
Their plan will come to fruition when Telescope runs Saturday in the BC Turf.
ARCADIA, Calif. – American Pharoah, expected to be a heavy favorite, was scratched from Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on Tuesday due to an injury, his connections announced.
A devastated Bob Baffert, who trains American Pharoah for Ahmed Zayat, said the problem is with the colt’s left front foot. X-rays and an ultrasound had come back negative, he said. Baffert said he hopes it’s a “deep, deep foot bruise” but planned to perform a nuclear scan on the horse later this week.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Shared Belief, the likely favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and V. E. Day, one of the race’s outsiders, both turned in easy half-mile workouts Tuesday in their final preps for Saturday’s $5 million race.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Caspar Netscher has been on the go all through October – to racetracks in three countries and over the Atlantic twice.
After finishing fifth in the Group 3 Bengough Stakes at Ascot on Oct. 4, Caspar Netscher traveled to Woodbine, where he won his first stakes since April 2012 in the Grade 2 Nearctic Stakes. To satisfy international quarantine requirements, the 5-year-old horse was sent to Holland in the days after the Nearctic Stakes before traveling back to North America for Saturday’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. - American Pharoah, the multiple Grade 1-winning 2-year-old, will be scratched from Saturday's $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile, trainer Bob Baffert confirmed Tuesday morning.
:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2014: Post positions and odds
Baffert was to hold a press conference at 9:30 am Pacific to provide details.
American Pharoah, who won the Del Mar Futurity and FrontRunner Stakes, was the morning-line favorite for the race.
ARCADIA, Calif. – In the early fall of 2013, Imagining was considered a candidate for the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita until he finished sixth in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park.
Trainer Shug McGaughey opted to keep Imagining in New York, where the horse won consecutive stakes at Belmont Park and Aqueduct.
This year, Imagining is headed across the country. When post positions were drawn Monday, Imagining was one of five Eastern-based runners among the 13 entrants. There are five European runners and three from Southern California.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Like the rest of her colleagues with a horse in Saturday’s $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint, trainer Kathy Ritvo held her breath during the post-position draw. The Sprint is arguably the one race among the 13 Breeders’ Cup events to be decided this weekend at Santa Anita for which post position is likely to have the most impact on the outcome.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The biggest mystery of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare has little to with post position and everything to do with current form.
Dank returned $5 as a popular winner of the 2013 Filly and Mare Turf, but her odds will be higher when she faces 10 rivals Saturday in the 1 1/4-mile turf race.
Since winning the race a year ago, Dank has started twice. She finished third by eight lengths in Dubai and was fifth in June at Ascot. If Dank does start favored again this year, her support will be tepid.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Last year’s trip to the Breeders’ Cup proved not to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for trainer Leah Gyarmati.
The former jockey turned trainer came to Santa Anita in 2013 with Sweet Reason, who finished fourth as the 5-2 favorite in the Juvenile Fillies. Gyarmati has returned to Southern California for the second straight year and again will participate in the $2 million Juvenile Fillies with the New York-bred Wonder Gal. For good measure, Gyarmati has brought back Sweet Reason to run in the $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The five French horses who stepped onto the Santa Anita main track at about 10 a.m. Monday might as well have been walking over the surface of the moon. In France, there is training on turf and training on all-weather surfaces, but very few horses – and certainly not Grade 1-caliber animals like this quintet – will ever train on dirt.
The Monday exercise, however, barely could be classified as training: The horses, going together, never got out of a jog and didn’t even make an entire loop of the Santa Anita oval.
