Horse Olympics You Can Bet On

Some called it the greatest day of racing in the memory of the sport. Seven Kentucky Derbies. An All-Star game that counts in the standings.

No claimers in here. No “non-winners of two races at a mile or over since February allowed two pounds.” These horses are aristocrats. They all carry the same weight (for age) here.

The Breeders’ Cup is an idea long overdue. You see, horsemen traditionally are not a sporting lot. Their instinct is never to run the best against the best. You look for an edge, not a contest. You shop for a price. You cast around for a nice cushy spot to drop your horse in. If you have a good horse, you make it easy on him. And you.

This ain’t it. This is where you get tested. This is where the champ fights the No. 1 contender, not his chauffeur. This is for the title. This is not just a complicated workout where you’re getting your horse fit for a big score later on.

It’s a Horse Olympics. They’re running for $10 million and the history books. The money is big, the honor bigger. Fourteen horses to a race maximum and not just any 14. To get here, you have to go through a winner’s circle and turn right. No platers need apply. You get five points for a win in a Grade I stakes, four for a Grade II and three for a Grade III. No soft touches here. These are not bunches who will quit at the eighth pole. If these guys were fighters, they’d all be Sugar Rays. Rockys. They’re all KO artists in their own right.

They’ve held five of these Breeders’ Cups. They said they wanted racing’s answer to the Super Bowl, but racing already had that--the Kentucky Derby. But for pure horsemen, the Derby is flawed. The spring of the year is a time when a horse has not reached his stride. He’s (or she’s) gawky, skittish, fearful. But by the fall, a horse is a pro.

It’s really racing’s attempt to remind the public it has stars, too, and drama and suspense--to make the sport of kings the king of sports for a day.

If it had been around at the time, it would have been a final face-off for Affirmed and Alydar. Man o’ War might have run his final race here. We could have gotten a longer look at Citation, Secretariat. If it does nothing else, it delays early stud, the creature, or creation, that is killing racing.

You get a look at the future. The first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, a mile race for the best 2-year-olds, was won by Chief’s Crown, who was to finish third in all three classic races--Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont--the next year, the only horse in history to do so. But second that year was Tank’s Prospect, who was to win the Preakness. And third was Spend a Buck, who was to win the Kentucky Derby.

In ‘85, the horse who was to win the ’86 Belmont, Danzig Connection, finished 12th or next-to-last. The fact that a horse is even in a Breeders’ Cup makes him bear watching.

In ‘86, the horse who was to win the ’87 Kentucky Derby, Alysheba, could do no better than third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Last year, the Eastern wonder youngster, Easy Goer, who was widely believed to be able to do everything but talk, got shocked by the in-and-outer, Is It True.

The Breeders’ Cup Classic was designed to come as close as any race to crowning a national champion racehorse. And it has encouraged some equine Dempsey-Tunneys.

The first one was actually more like Dempsey-Firpo or any Fritzie Zivic fight. A horse, Gate Dancer, who ran in a hood that made him look like a four-legged Ku Klux Klansman, all but ate his opposition at the wire. He so littered the finish line that a 31-1 shot sneaked in, not so much winning the race as surviving it. Gate Dancer, the only horse ever to get disqualified in the Kentucky Derby, got disqualified here, too, but came back the next year to run within a head of the winner again.

Unlike a Kentucky Derby, you can run in multiple Breeders’ Cups. A horse called Cryptoclearance will be making his third consecutive appearance this year. He usually finishes fifth.

The Classic, a $3-million romp, pitted back-to-back Kentucky Derby winners in ‘87--Ferdinand vs. Alysheba. Ferdinand won by a nose.

It’s Camptown racing. But it’s also high society. For the jet set. The only two-time winner in the series is racing’s Mademoiselle from Armentieres, the dainty French filly, Miesque, who ran down the boys two years in a row in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. She beat a Belmont winner, Bet Twice, by something like 28 lengths last year.

So, it is not your basic afternoon of allowance company. They write these races for the bravest and the best. It’s the world’s fastest track meet. Gulfstream Park will have more fast horses on the track Nov. 4 than Geronimo’s Apaches. And they’re all trying. But you can still get a price. Lashkari paid $108.80 in 1984. Fran’s Valentine would have paid $150 for her win but she got disqualified and placed 10th. It’s racing at its best. But it’s still racing. It’s what happens when 14 sure things get loaded into a gate at once. Somebody bet on the bay. O doo-dah day.