A British Frown Goes With Stiff Upper Lip After Breeders’ Cup

Brough Scott, the former English jockey, didn’t cry during this year’s Breeders’ Cup telecast, but the NBC analyst may have set a record for most frowns during a four-hour program.

Scott wasn’t the only Englishman who was crestfallen after the seven Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita two weeks ago. The British were confident that they might dominate several of the million-dollar races this year, and of all things, the only foreign winner was Last Tycoon, an Irish-bred owned by an American and trained by a Frenchman.

Clive Brittain says that the English press has not yet stopped writing about his homeland’s failure at Santa Anita. Brittain raised one hand as far as he could above his head and lowered the other hand to knee level, trying to indicate how much copy had been produced after England’s debacle in the afternoon sun.

“There are lessons to be learned from this year’s Breeders’ Cup,” Brittain said Friday at Hollywood Park, where he is preparing Bold Arrangement for another run at the Americans in Sunday’s first division of the Hollywood Derby.

Bold Arrangement and 12 other 3-year-olds drew into the first half of the Derby; the second division will also be contested by 13 grass runners, meaning that one $250,000 race has been split into two worth more than $200,000 apiece.

Bold Arrangement was one of the English also-rans in the Breeders’ Cup, although his ninth-place finish in the $3 million Classic was almost predictable: The chestnut colt’s form had been poor most of the summer on grass and, despite his second-place finish behind Ferdinand in the Kentucky Derby, he was being asked to return to the United States against older horses who were also this country’s best handicap runners on dirt.

The major disappointments for the English at Santa Anita were Dancing Brave and Sonic Lady. They had each lost only one race in their careers, yet Dancing Brave, at 1-2 odds, ran fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf and Sonic Lady, the 2-1 favorite in Mile won by Last Tycoon, finished seventh.

Other than Last Tycoon, there were 11 Breeders’ Cup starters that had run their previous races abroad. The best finish was Dancing Brave, with three Europeans running next to last and one finishing last.

Brittain, who saddled the filly Pebbles to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Aqueduct in 1985, has been pondering all this.

“In order to win a Breeders’ Cup race, you’ve got to start thinking about preparing your horse for that day long before it comes,” Brittain said. “Breeders’ Cup races aren’t won by the best horses in Europe, they’re won by the best horses that are running in America on that day.

“Dancing Brave had to run an extremely demanding race to win the Arc de Triomphe less than a month before. You can’t beat the best U.S. horses with a tired horse. With Pebbles, it was different. She had an easy season before she ran in the Breeders’ Cup.”

John Gosden, an Englishman who now trains in California, agrees with Brittain regarding Dancing Brave. Gosden is trying to add to the share of the split Hollywood Derby that he captured with the filly Royal Heroine in 1983, running My Generation Sunday in the first half and Armada in the second.

“It’s easy to say that Dancing Brave had only seven races this year going into the Breeders’ Cup,” Gosden said. “But the last five were either a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half. It’s awfully hard on a horse getting one ready to run in those grueling distance races over there.”

Next year’s fourth Breeders’ Cup will be the latest it’s ever been, the races scheduled for Nov. 21 at Hollywood Park. There already is speculation that the English, whose season will have long been completed and whose memories of this year’s results may still be fresh, will not send as many of their horses.

“Before this year’s Breeders’ Cup, I would have said that next year’s late date would have discouraged English horses from coming,” Brittain said. “But maybe the late date will help us. Maybe our horses need more time, as they seemed to indicate this year, and the Nov. 21 date might give us the chance to show up with more fresh runners.”

Unlike Dancing Brave, Brittain felt that Bold Arrangement might have had too much rest going into the Classic. He hadn’t run in almost two months. Bold Arrangement’s best race this year was the Kentucky Derby, which came only nine days after he made his U.S. debut by running third, less than a length behind the victorious Bachelor Beau, in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

The Hollywood Derby is just 15 days after the Breeders’ Cup. It isn’t as important as the Classic, and a split race always loses luster, but a win by the English would at least get Brough Scott smiling again.

Horse Racing Notes

The lineup for the first division of the Hollywood Derby shapes up this way:

Thrill Show, Storm on the Loose, Shafy, Vilzak, Trubulare, My Generation, Air Display, Elle Seule, Bold Arrangement, Ack Ack Heir, Russian Logic, Thresh It Up and Caro’s Hollywood. In the second half, it will be Cheapskate, Good Command, Full Charm, Double Feint, Armada, Fortinbras, Moorgate Man, Glow, Euphrates, Rafael’s Dancer, Chinoiserie, Bruiser and Spellbound. . . . All of the starters carry 122 pounds except Cheapskate, who has 125 because of his stakes record, and Elle Seule, who as a filly has an impost of 119. . . . Good Command and Bruiser are coupled in the betting. . . . Alex Solis becomes the 11th different jockey to ride Bold Arrangement, who has lost 12 straight since winning 4 of his first 6 starts. His last win came in August of 1985. . . . Clive Brittain is starting Jupiter Island in the Japan Cup on Nov. 23. He has a promising 2-year-old, Rumboogie, who might wind up at Keeneland in next year’s Blue Grass.