Woodbine Wants Bigger Fields in Its Breeders’ Cup Turf Races

The fields for the two grass races are expected to be bigger than ever when the Breeders’ Cup is run at Woodbine in suburban Toronto next October.

There already have been negotiations between Woodbine and Breeders’ Cup officials to enlarge the grass fields--perhaps to as many as 20 horses--for the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes and the $1-million Mile. Since the Breeders’ Cup started in 1984, the seven races--five on dirt, two on grass--have been limited to 14 horses.

Woodbine began using its new turf course, the biggest in North America, in the fall of 1994, and will ask the Breeders’ Cup board for permission to increase the grass fields at a meeting later this month. Some Breeders’ Cup directors have reservations about 20-horse fields, but there may be a compromise that would enable the Canadian track to run 18-horse races on grass. Future Breeders’ Cups would revert to 14-horse grass fields.

“Our grass course can accommodate up to 20 horses,” said Dave Gorman, a vice president at the Ontario Jockey Club, which operates Woodbine. “We’d like to do something innovative if we could, but it will be the Breeders’ Cup’s call.”

Because of horses coming from Europe, where all the racing is on grass, the Turf Stakes and the Mile have been the most popular Breeders’ Cup races, and many times have been oversubscribed. Last year, for example, 24 horses were pre-entered for the Mile at Belmont Park. The extra horses were turned away after a review of their records by a Breeders’ Cup panel of handicappers.

In 12 years, more horses have run in the Turf and the Mile than in any of the Breeders’ Cup races on dirt. Six times there have been capacity, 14-horse fields for the Mile, and five of the Turf runnings have drawn 14 horses. The Mile has averaged 13 horses a race, the Turf 12.3.

But if the reaction from local trainers is typical, the Breeders’ Cup may not be pleasing many horsemen by expanding the grass fields.

“It’s an uneducated guess, but I’d hate to see bigger fields,” said Richard Mandella, whose Kotashaan beat 13 horses when the Breeders’ Cup Turf was run at Santa Anita in 1993.

“Woodbine has a fabulous turf course, all right, but I think that bigger fields would result in luck playing too much a part in who wins. This is racing’s championship day, and the results should be based on ability more than luck.”

The history of the Mile shows that horses breaking from outside posts have been at a disadvantage, so theoretically more horses in the gate would make it a tougher assignment for a higher percentage of the field. Only two of the 12 winners of the Mile--Royal Heroine in 1984 and Lure in 1993--had post positions outside the No. 9 hole. Generally, post positions for the Turf seem not to have mattered.

Despite drawing unfavorable posts, both of trainer Jenine Sahadi’s runners ran well in the Mile. Megan’s Interco finished fourth in 1994 and Fastness, the outside horse last year, ran second.

“I don’t care how wide the Woodbine course is, more horses will mean problems,” Sahadi said. “A lot of horses will be running into all kinds of trouble. Fourteen is a good number, and they should stick with it. The idea of the Breeders’ Cup is to bring the cream of the crop together. Letting more than 14 horses run is getting away from that idea.”

Last year, at Belmont Park, trainer Wally Dollase hoped to run Ventiquattrofogli in the Mile, but because of the overflow of pre-entries, the horse was stranded on the alternates’ list. Regardless, Dollase doesn’t favor expanding the grass fields to more than 14.

“I guess the guy with the 15th horse would be happy if there were bigger fields,” Dollase said. “But I still can’t see it. If you have more horses, you have more confusion. You want the best horses in the race, not mediocrity. It sounds to me like they’d be turning these races into another Kentucky Derby. Twenty horses can run in the Derby, and it’s too many. With that many, you don’t have a truly run race. About one-third of the horses that run in the Derby get hurt, and that’s because of the size of the fields.”

Woodbine’s E.P. Taylor Turf Course, named after the man who bred and raced Northern Dancer, is unique in that it is situated outside the dirt track. The course is 1 1/2 miles--the same distance as the Breeders’ Cup Turf--and has a width of 100 to 120 feet. With sweeping turns that resemble many of the European courses, the Woodbine layout also has a 1,440-foot stretch, the longest in North America.

In September 1994, trainer Roger Attfield won the first race over the Taylor course when Alywow ran first in the Canadian Breeders’ Cup Stakes.

“I’m predicting that the Europeans will come here by the planeload when they hear about this course,” Attfield said afterward.

Europeans, of course, are used to big fields. At the 1994 Royal Ascot meet, 30 horses ran in the Ascot Handicap. The next day, there was a race with 32 horses. For the British, 20 at Woodbine wouldn’t seem like a crowd.

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Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Bill Mott plans to ship Cigar from Florida to California only a couple of days before the Santa Anita Handicap on March 2. That was the travel schedule Mott used last year when Cigar won the Hollywood Gold Cup. . . . Gary Stevens will be at Gulfstream Park next Saturday to ride Victory Speech in the $200,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes, a prep for the Florida Derby. Victory Speech is owned by Michael Tabor and trained by Wayne Lukas, who teamed with Stevens to win last year’s Kentucky Derby with Thunder Gulch. Victory Speech, one of 17 horses that Lukas has nominated for this year’s Triple Crown, has won four of seven starts, but has drawn little attention because he is virtually untested in stakes competition. In his only stakes start, the Tremont at Belmont Park in June, he finished third.

Stevens will accept the 1996 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award between races Sunday at Santa Anita. His mount in the $150,000 Las Virgenes Stakes for 3-year-old fillies that day is the Lukas-trained Cara Rafaela. Stevens could become the first jockey to win the Las Virgenes four times. Others running are Antespend, Hidden Lake, Canta’s Crusade, Wish You, Raw Gold and Wided Eyed Wanderer. . . . Kent Desormeaux is out of town today, riding Siphon in the $100,000 Bay Meadows Express Handicap.

AKsarben, the Lincoln (Neb.) track that opened in 1935, will not conduct live racing this year because of financial difficulties brought on by casino and riverboat-gambling competition in nearby Iowa. Last year, on-track attendance sank to its the lowest daily average ever, and betting was the lowest since 1951. Casino gambling is not legal in Nebraska. AKsarben has been operated by Douglas County, which bought the track in 1992.