The ups and downs of a talent-packed Breeders’ Cup weekend at Keeneland
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2020 Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of the 2020 Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington.
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Highlights from this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland:
Who was up?
Bob Baffert: The Hall of Fame trainer didn’t have a great start to Breeders’ Cup week. On Wednesday, he released a statement that acknowledged the negative cloud hanging over his barn due to a string of positive drug tests in his horses, vowing to do better. On Friday, his favorite in the Juvenile Fillies, Princess Noor, finished fifth. Saturday started off much better. Gamine, a 3-year-old who was on the wrong end of two of those positive tests this year, won the Filly & Mare Sprint in dominating fashion. Then, in the main event, Baffert watched Kentucky Derby winner Authentic come home a winner in the $6 million Classic, giving Baffert a fourth career victory in the marquee race of the world championships, most of all time. (Oh, and Baffert’s morning-line Classic favorite, Improbable, finished second). “I love this sport,” Baffert said, surrounded by his family, after the 1-2 finish in the Classic.
Brad Cox: Did anyone have a better weekend than the Louisville native? Cox, who came into Friday with three career Breeders’ Cup victories, brought eight total starters over seven races to these world championships. He won four of those races, including the $2 million Distaff with the incredible Monomoy Girl and the $2 million Juvenile with Essential Quality, who stamped himself as the (very) early Kentucky Derby favorite. Cox has never had a Derby starter — and there’s still a long way to go ’til the first Saturday in May — but perhaps 2021 will bring even more milestones.
Aidan O’Brien: The legendary Irish trainer was the winner of 12 Breeders’ Cup races going into Saturday’s Mile, but he was also on quite a skid: 57 starters without a victory in American races and 38 consecutive defeats in the Breeders’ Cup, dating back to Mendelssohn’s win in the Juvenile Turf three years ago. In the Mile, he pulled a shocker, getting a 1-2-3 finish with a trio of long shots: Order of Australia (73-1), Circus Maxiumus (11-1) and Lope Y Fernandez (18-1). Another winner here: anyone who cashed a trifecta ticket, which paid $8,786 on a $1 bet.
Who was down?
Kenny McPeek: The Lexington trainer — a Tates Creek High School and UK graduate — didn’t have a favorite in any of the races this Breeders’ Cup weekend, but it sure seemed like it might be the year that he would finally earn a victory in the world championships. Going into Friday, he was 0-for-31 in Breeders’ Cup races and had five more entries this weekend, including the second choice in Friday’s Juvenile Fillies (Simply Ravishing) and the second choice in Saturday’s Distaff (Swiss Skydiver). Simply Ravishing finished fourth. Swiss Skydiver, this year’s Preakness winner, finished seventh. Both horses stumbled out of the gate. “It’s been an unlucky weekend,” McPeek said.
Christophe Soumillon: The French jockey had two mounts lined up for the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday: Order of Australia in the $2 million Mile and Tarnawa in the $4 million Turf. On Friday morning, Soumillon tested positive for COVID-19 and was pulled from those mounts. On Saturday, both horses won.
Previous track records: So much for history. Records were being shattered left and right Saturday, with Nashville getting things started on the Breeders’ Cup undercard — running 6 furlongs in 1:07.89 to win the first race of the day and break the four-year-old record by more than half a second. In the first Breeders’ Cup race of the day, 3-year-old filly Gamine won the 7-furlong Filly & Mare Sprint in 1:20.20, a full second faster than the six-year-old track record. Two races later, Knicks Go won the Dirt Mile in 1:33.85, more than half a second faster than the previous record, set by Liam’s Map five years ago. And then in the next race, 17-1 shot Audarya won the Filly & Mare Turf — at 1 3/16 miles — in 1:52.72 to set a new track record.
Keeneland fans: Five years ago, when Keeneland hosted its first Breeders’ Cup, local fans lucky enough to get onto the grounds were treated to American Pharoah’s triumphant final race as part of two stellar days of championship racing. This weekend, local fans were forced to watch the action from home. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Breeders’ Cup announced back in September that fans would not be permitted to attend the Breeders’ Cup, limiting those allowed on the grounds to “racing participants and essential personnel only.” Those were apparently fairly loose terms — hundreds of people still managed to find their way inside the Keeneland gates — but the atmosphere was a far, far cry from that day in 2015 when more than 50,000 packed the iconic racetrack.
Key number
727: Here’s the consolation to no fans at this year’s Breeders’ Cup: event officials also announced in September that the world championships would return to Lexington two years from now. So, 727 days from Saturday, the Breeders’ Cup will be back at Keeneland, and hopefully things will be back to normal.
Up next
Before the Breeders’ Cup returns to Kentucky, the event will head back out west to Del Mar, which is scheduled to host the world championships Nov. 5-6, 2021. Del Mar first hosted the Breeders’ Cup back in 2017, when Gun Runner won the Classic.
Last word
Let’s give the final word to the connections of Whitmore, the 7-year-old gelding who ran in his fourth Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Saturday … and finally won for the first time. Whitmore now has 13 wins, seven seconds, and two thirds in 24 career races at 6 furlongs. His trainer, Oklahoma native Ron Moquett, won his first Breeders’ Cup race and delivered an emotional and humorous press conference, including having to describe Whitmore’s somewhat difficult personality to jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.:
“Hats off to Irad, getting on a horse that’s 15 to 1 and having some country guy go, ‘Hey, we believe in this horse and just do this. And don’t worry about him kicking before he goes in the gate. That’s a good thing! And don’t worry about if he sees another horse and he tries to go to his right — he just wants to bite that horse.’ And me telling him all this, he’s got to be looking at me like I got two heads.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2020 at 5:42 PM.
