The 41st annual Breeders’ Cup World Championship will be held Friday and Saturday at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club outside San Diego, where the horse racing world will converge to crown top Thoroughbred horses in 14 divisions.
The highlight is Saturday afternoon’s $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, a classic distance of 1 1/4 miles on dirt track to determine the world’s best horse.
While there are no standouts among the 3-year-olds and older horses this season, the Classic features 14 excellent runners, several of whom will race outside of their normal comfort zones. .
With 5 wins and 2 losses, the morning favorite for the Classic is City of Troy, the world’s best turf horse who has won three G1 races in Europe this season. Trained by Aidan O’Brien and ridden by Ryan Moore, City of Troy will be racing on dirt for the first time as O’Brien seeks to win the Classic after 17 failed attempts.
“(City of Troy) has been training very hard over the summer, and then he comes here on a different continent, a different field, a different track, race and pace. There are so many different things,” O’Brien said. “Everything is done. I think we looked at everything we could.”
Looming as the No. 2 choice at 3-1 is the enigmatic Fierceness, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner. The 2-year-old colt, the 2023 Horse of the Year, has won the past two races, including the Travers Stakes (G1) in his most recent start.
Fierceness has never raced against older horses and is a feast-or-famine type of horse, and he finished 15th in this year’s Kentucky Derby, the favorite. His trainer, Todd Pletcher, loves the way the colt is trained and developed.
“Physically, I thought Fierceness did a really good job,” Pletcher said. “He’s gotten bigger, stronger, and put on more weight. You can see he’s developing into a 3-year-old horse in the fall. I’m very happy with his overall condition.”
Three horses from Japan will appear in the Classic Horse competition. Two of those horses are horses that ran in last year’s Classic (Dharma Sotogake and Ushbate Soro), and the talented Forever Young, who finished third by a nose in the Kentucky Derby.
Forever Young has raced once since Run for the Roses, scoring an easy victory in the Japan Cup Dirt Classic, and his connections are enthusiastic about his chance in the Classic. He is listed as the third choice at 6-1.
Perhaps the most intriguing horse in the Classic is Next. He is currently on a seven-fight winning streak, all in dirt marathon races of 1 3/8 miles or longer, and by a combined margin of more than 90 lengths. Odds on the morning line were 8-1.
In addition to the Classic, Saturday’s nine-race Breeders’ Cup card will feature $5 million Turf, with Rebels Romance the 5-2 favorite on the morning line. In the $2 million Distaff, popular filly Soaped Anna wins with picks 4-5. In the $2 million filly turf, Warlike Goddess took first place with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. Federal Judge goes into the post as a 3-1 favorite in the $2 million sprint. In the $2 million mile, Irish horse Porta Fortuna was a lukewarm favorite with four wins and one loss. And there are three million-dollar races: the Filly Sprint, the Turf Sprint, and the Dirt Mile.
The Breeders’ Cup begins Friday with the Future Stars, with all five races contested by horses of two-year-old racing year. The card includes the $2 million races, Juvenile Fillies and Juvenile (both on dirt). and three $1 million events – Juvenile Turf Sprint, Juvenile Fillies Turf, and Juvenile Turf.
This is the second year in a row that the Breeders’ Cup has been held in California, last year at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, and the third time it will be held in Del Mar. This iconic beachside track will host the 2025 Breeders’ Cup.
–Field level media
