Birds, preservationist of California's TB racing history, biomechanical analysis capper, nature, humor/shenanigans, potatoes, & unabashed Flightline fanatic.
Bay Area, California
Joined February 2024
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Although I have not seen it announced anywhere, but is Forever Young (JPN) going to go for one last race before taking up stud duty? Or was the Breeders' Cup Classic the end of the road?
Hopefully, T O Elvis' 2027 campaign in the Middle East will be a successful bid as he was phenomenal winning the Breeders' Cup Sprint.
Re: 2026 Horse of the Year
If winning just two races is enough to be crowned Horse of the Year, then we've lost sight of what this prestigious award is supposed to represent. Are we celebrating greatness, or simply rewarding horses for doing less?
Don't get me wrong. Sovereignty is an exceptional racehorse. Winning both the Whitney and Breeders' Cup Classic in one season is impressive. But should two victories outweigh an entire season of consistent excellence? It is one thing if Sovereignty capped off an undefeated season, but he didn't. Others accomplished more.
Deterministic won four of five starts, including three G1 races and the Breeders' Cup Mile. Nitrogen won four races in seven starts and even challenged males. Hughes went undefeated in five starts, winning three G1 races. All three of these horses showed up, competed, and delivered. Heck, even Magnitude defeated Sovereignty in a G1 earlier in the year, as well as winning the G1 Dubai World Cup over Forever Young (JPN). Shouldn't he be considered for the same award, or is it because a Breeders' Cup Classic win automatically overlooks everything else?
What message are we sending to owners and trainers when horses that race more frequently, take greater risks, and consistently win are overlooked in favor of a horse with just two victories? Horse of the Year should reward excellence, consistency, and achievement over an entire season, not simply the biggest victories. Otherwise, perhaps we should call it Performance of the Year instead of Horse of the Year?
If Justify, Rachel Alexandra, Mineshaft, and even Point Given can win HOTY without participating in the Breeders' Cup Classic, then there is a chance that Nitrogen, Magnitude, Deterministic, and maybe even Hughes can possibly secure it.
Japan understood something that much of the American breeding industry seems to have forgotten: A great Thoroughbred should be bred to race, not just to sell.
For decades, Kentucky's commercial breeding industry has increasingly rewarded precocious speed, fashionable pedigrees, and stallions whose greatest selling point is how quickly their offspring can win at two. We've reached a point where horses with only a handful of starts, sometimes barely enough to establish their own durability, are rushed off to stud and marketed as the next greatest influence on the breed.
Meanwhile, Japan took American bloodlines, including Sunday Silence, and built a breeding program that places enormous value on stamina, soundness, longevity, and performance over multiple seasons.
When you consistently reward speed over stamina, precocity over durability, and auction prices over racing careers, you shouldn't be surprised when the breed begins reflecting those priorities. Most USA-based breeders have not forgotten how to breed brilliant horses. The question is whether they have become so focused on producing commercially-valuable stallions that they have lost sight of producing durable, exceptional racehorses.
Japan invested in the Thoroughbred as an athlete. Too much of Kentucky has invested in the Thoroughbred as a commodity. And now, we're seeing the consequences...
It is interesting to wake up and read some things here. It varies from Keeneland totally sucks as a BC hosting site, then Del Mar sucks as a BC venue, opinion flip-flops to Santa Anita being a terrible venue. People are still mad that Sovereignty won, complaints that the overall card was too chalky, get rid of the undercard races... Man!
While it is perfectly-fine to be upset about things, the best part of the Keeneland Breeders' Cup is all the horses were able to return back to their stalls. Despite the scratch fest, that is a win in itself. I will be frank that the turf course condition had me the most worried, but I'm glad it somehow miraculously held up with no one getting injured.
A lot higher than I expected.
🇺🇸 We have announced fees for G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner #Sovereignty and G1 Pacific Classic winner #Knightsbridge
🆕 Sovereignty: $150k
🆕 Knightsbridge: $75k
🤩 A lifetime breeding right in each stallion will be offered tomorrow @FasigTiptonCo Night of the Stars!
Read more here 👇
darleyamerica.com/news/fees-…
I would not be surprised, if they call it a career from here. 17 races, ITM 16 times, 11 different race tracks, participated in three Breeders' Cups, nearly won the Kentucky Derby.... That is some racehorse!
Ryusei Sakai on Forever Young:
“There were parts in training where it seemed to be struggling a bit, or where it felt different from usual… Small signs, how should I put it… It was just a feeling, but something felt a little off.
(When asked if the horse was unsettled in the gate) There was some of that. During saddling or in the gate. There were those small things.
(When asked if the stay and adjustment at the track affected it) I have some ideas in my mind about what it might have been, but I’d like to discuss it with Mr. Yahagi and the stable staff. I don’t have a definitive answer yet.
The pace wasn’t as fast as I expected, so I was able to settle smoothly in second. I didn’t think we’d be able to get that position, so I felt good about it as we went around the first turn. I still haven’t watched the race properly, but it felt similar to last year - the horse’s usual winning pattern, and I think things went very well.
It wasn’t like Dubai (World Cup), where the response disappeared early, so the feeling was that we could win today as well. Up until I asked for the effort, that is. When Sovereignty came… I had already started asking a little before it arrived, hoping we could sprint together, but by the time Sovereignty got to us, the horse had nothing left. It’s not that easy, after all.”
FinchFries retweeted
Ryusei Sakai on Forever Young:
“There were parts in training where it seemed to be struggling a bit, or where it felt different from usual… Small signs, how should I put it… It was just a feeling, but something felt a little off.
(When asked if the horse was unsettled in the gate) There was some of that. During saddling or in the gate. There were those small things.
(When asked if the stay and adjustment at the track affected it) I have some ideas in my mind about what it might have been, but I’d like to discuss it with Mr. Yahagi and the stable staff. I don’t have a definitive answer yet.
The pace wasn’t as fast as I expected, so I was able to settle smoothly in second. I didn’t think we’d be able to get that position, so I felt good about it as we went around the first turn. I still haven’t watched the race properly, but it felt similar to last year - the horse’s usual winning pattern, and I think things went very well.
It wasn’t like Dubai (World Cup), where the response disappeared early, so the feeling was that we could win today as well. Up until I asked for the effort, that is. When Sovereignty came… I had already started asking a little before it arrived, hoping we could sprint together, but by the time Sovereignty got to us, the horse had nothing left. It’s not that easy, after all.”
Makes you wonder what Sovereignty could have done, if he didn't scratch from last year's Breeders' Cup Classic?
#5 Powerline watching everyone race before deciding to partake at the last minute. Amazing he was able to overcome that to win.
Might as well make a snarky BINGO card for the Breeders' Cup card between both days. Let's have fun while we can, right?
P.S. If I didn't have to bake six dozen pumpkin-shaped cookies for a school event tomorrow, then I would have made this in Pixelmator versus relying on AI. Enjoy!
🤖 Made with AI
The Breeders’ Cup used to separate the champions from the pretenders. Now it just separates the entries from the starters. Maybe they should hand out participation trophies to the horses that actually make it into the paddock at this rate? Might as well replace the starting gate with a revolving door while we are at it, too.
With all of these Breeders' Cup scratches and defections, the field sizes are coming up like a typical Wednesday card at Belmont.
However, the biggest difference between the two are that Belmont's turf courses look like Wimbledon. Keeneland's looks like the parking lot after a three-day county fair.
Since Pletcher is a hot topic recently, here are some Belmont stats from 9/18 to 10/24 on him:
Todd Pletcher is strangely still struggling. After his two losses today (10/24), he is currently at 3 wins from 53 starters (6%). A $2 win bet on every one would have lost 74%. His last winner was with a horse named Gate to Wire on 10/4. Since then, he’s 0-for-24. Make sure to check the two screenshots on his distance statistics, as well as jockey ones, too:
* 0-for-8 in stakes races. No ITM finishes.
* 1-for-11 with favorites.
* 0-for-11 with first-time starters.
* Flavien Prat is 2-for-6 (+63%) on his horses, the only rider who has won for him other than Javier Castellano’s single win. Ricardo Santana Jr. is 0-for-16 and Kendrick Carmouche is 0-for-10.
* Dirt, 6½ furlongs to a mile is his best range: 2-for-13, and 7 of the 13 finished in the top three.
* On dirt beyond a mile he’s 0-for-7. Only one of those horses finished in the top three: Tip Top Thomas ran 2nd at 1 1/16 miles.
* His most common spot is 1 1/16 miles on the Widener turf: 0-for-7.
* Across 23 starts on turf, at every distance on both the Widener and the inner turf, he hasn’t won.
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Hope you enjoyed this!
Considering all the negative stats, the horse looked really good to me on the track. Took a chance and was rewarded.
