Breeders’ Cup Changes Rules for Eligibility

Facing the possibility that many of the best horses wouldn’t be running in their $4-million race at Hollywood Park this fall, directors of the Breeders’ Cup announced sweeping changes in eligibility rules Friday.

The new rules, the first major changes since the Breeders’ Cup began in 1984, are an inducement for the owners of horses such as Gentlemen, Siphon, Skip Away, Silver Charm and Free House to run in the Classic, the richest of seven races on Nov. 8 that will be worth $11 million.

Under the old rules, Gentlemen, the winner of the Hollywood Gold Cup, would have had to be supplemented into the Classic at a penalty of $800,000 because neither the horse nor his sire had been nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program.

A new rule doesn’t change the penalty, but now $720,000 of the supplement would be added to the purse. The remaining $80,000 would stay with the Breeders’ Cup, which with 45 racetracks co-sponsors a year-round stakes program that offers $13.5 million in purses.

Already R.D. Hubbard, chairman of Hollywood Park and the controlling member of a partnership that races Gentlemen, is rethinking his plans for the horse.

“I’ll give serious consideration to putting him in,” Hubbard said Friday. “Now we’ll be running for our own money, and that’s a big difference. I’m very pleased that the Breeders’ Cup has done this. It will be very positive for everybody.”

Hubbard may have prodded the Breeders’ Cup into its rule changes by floating the idea of having a major race for the ineligible horses at Hollywood Park in late November. A Breeders’ Cup spokesman said that when its directors met Thursday, there was no mention of the proposed Hollywood Park race.

“I think the possibility of our later race brought everything to a head,” Hubbard said. “I don’t know about the later race now. Hollywood Park wants it, and TOC [Thoroughbred Owners of California] wants it, but it might not have the significance it once had.”

The Breeders’ Cup’s new supplementary rule will also apply to the other six races, which are the Turf, worth $2 million; the Juvenile, the Juvenile Fillies, the Distaff, the Mile and the Sprint, which are worth $1 million apiece.

Another rule change will reduce the supplementary amount an owner will have to pay if his horse runs in more than one Breeders’ Cup race. For example, if a horse were supplemented to the Juvenile at a cost of $120,000, all but $20,000 of that amount would be credited to the horse’s future supplements. A horse supplemented to the Classic for $480,000 would cost its owner $80,000 if it ran a second year. Under the old rule, an owner would have been required to pay $480,000 for every Classic that the horse ran in.