Handi-Cupping : Breeders’ Cup Races Offer Bettors the Ultimate Challenge

The Breeders’ Cup is the ultimate handicapping challenge. At Santa Anita and the tracks across the country that offer simulcasting, bettors will be poring over their Racing Forms trying to divine the relative merits of the best horses from the East, the West and Europe.

Some of Saturday’s seven races involve so many uncertainties and complexities that they are virtually inscrutable. But in the two main events there may not be too much subtlety.

Turkoman, the best horse in America, is going to win the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Dancing Brave, the best horse in the world, will win the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Surprisingly, both of them may be decent betting propositions. Dancing Brave will be a bigger price than he ought to because he is not yet a celebrity on this side of the Atlantic. Turkoman may not even be favored because of the strong West Coast sentiment for the local hero Precisionist.

But anybody who saw the horses’ only previous confrontation, in the Marlboro Cup at Belmont Park, knows that Turkoman is superior to Precisionist at 1 miles. In that five-horse field, there was no one capable of challenging Precisionist for the early lead, and the speedster was able to open a three-length lead while setting a slow pace. Yet Turkoman rallied powerfully, caught the leader by the time they had turned into the stretch and prevailed by 1 1/2 lengths.

There is a prevalent myth that the Santa Anita racing strip will favor Precisionist, but the track has given no edge to front-runners this fall. Precisionist will encounter much more difficult conditions than he faced at Belmont. He won’t be able to get an easy early lead because the speedy Herat is in the field. Precisionist’s best game has never been running 1 miles, anyway, and even though the Classic looks on paper like a a two-horse race, one of the other stretch-runners in the field might pick up the pieces to get second place. I am taking a shot with exactas of Turkoman over Nostalgia’s Star and Bold Arrangement.

I have been an ardent Turkoman fan all season because he has the greatest stretch kick, the greatest acceleration, of any horse I have seen in years. Or at least I thought so until I saw the films of Dancing Brave’s races in Europe.

The English 3-year-old is a genuine superstar. In the stretch run of 1 1/2-mile races, he can fly like a sprinter. Unlike many acclaimed European horses who are just long-winded plodders, Dancing Brave has the quickness that will make him ideally suited to American racing.

Local chauvinists think Dancing Brave will get a challenge from the California mare Estrapade, but even when she won the Arlington Million she didn’t beat any rivals of top class. The best U.S. horse in the field is Manila, the impressive winner of five straight grass races. In another year, he might figure to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf; this year, his best hope is to complete a Dancing Brave-Manila exacta.

Most of the other Breeders’ Cup races aren’t quite so easy.

--Juvenile: This field is filled with promising 2-year-old colts. Capote is the favorite after scoring a wire-to-wire victory over Gulch at Santa Anita. Undefeated Polish Navy is the second choice after leading all the way to score a nose victory over Demon’s Begone in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont. They are evenly matched, but with so many speed horses vying to get a good position in a 13-horse field, the early pace is likely to be hot and to favor a horse who can finish strongly. That horse may be Demon’s Begone.

--Juvenile Fillies: If any of Saturday’s races is likely to produce a wild upset, this is the one. There is no filly in the 13-horse field with outstanding ability, and all of the apparent contenders are speed horses who could set the stage for a stretch-runner’s rally. Ruling Angel, who has won three straight route races against soft competition in Canada, might be the upsetter.

--Sprint: Groovy is a standout, a legitimate odds-on favorite. He was the best sprinter in the East, then won a prep race at Santa Anita by running six furlongs in 1:08 15.

--Mile: Sonic Lady looks like the class of the field; she has won seven of her eight career starts in Europe, almost all of them important stakes. But can she make the transition to American racing?

Two years hardly constitute a trend, but European horses have been highly regarded in the first two runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Mile and have been trounced. Unaccustomed to the fast pace of races here, they have dropped so far behind in the early going that they never got into contention.

If Sonic Lady is vulnerable, the race looks wide open, but I have a theory about U.S. turf horses that may clarify it. The best group of grass horses in the country are the 3-year-olds who have running in New York. Their quality has become apparent since they have moved into open company. Manila proved himself the best turf horse of any age in the East. Southjet went to Canada and scored a stunning victory over Shadari, who had finished within a length of Dancing Brave in Europe this summer.

Two New York 3-year-olds, Glow and Double Feint, are in the lineup for the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Glow has beaten Manila and lost a close decision to Southjet, and he is in sharp condition now, coming off an easy victory in the Maryland Million. He has a good chance to pull an upset.

--Distaff: Lady’s Secret may not be in peak form after a long, hard campaign, and she isn’t a true 1-mile horse. Fortunately for her, she has no formidable opposition in this race. She figures to win, but she does not offer a decent betting proposition. Why bother to take a short price on her when we can get decent odds on champs like Turkoman and Dancing Brave?