The Cup Runs Over With Extra Money

Sonny Hine, the trainer who is making the Breeders’ Cup Classic the richest race in the world, wanted the purse to be even bigger.

“I was hoping Gentlemen would run,” Hine said Wednesday. “That would have made it a better gamble for me because of the extra money he would have brought. I’m disappointed that he’s not running.”

For the first time, supplementary fees are being added to the Breeders’ Cup purses. So when the $4-million Classic is run at Hollywood Park on Nov. 8, its purse jumps to $4.4 million because Hine and his wife Carolyn, who race Skip Away, are supplementing him into the race for $480,000. Besides the Classic, the only other $4-million race has been the Dubai World Cup, which has been run the last two years.

Gentlemen would have been the favorite in the Classic, and because he was another supplementary, at a cost of $800,000, his presence would have jacked up the purse $720,000, to $5.12 million. But Gentlemen, who was running a fever last week, has been withdrawn.

Skip Away, the best 3-year-old colt in the country last year, has won only three of 10 starts this year, but in his last race he was a convincing winner of the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. That win has buoyed Hine’s confidence.

“If my horse runs his race, they’ll know he’s in there,” Hine said. “I think he could be [horse of the year] if he wins.”

The supplementary money that’s not added to the purse--in Skip Away’s case, $80,000 of the $480,000 the Hines are putting up--reverts to the Breeders’ Cup. First place in the Classic will be worth $2,288,000, which is $208,000 more than what Alphabet Soup earned for winning last year’s race.

Pre-entry for the seven Breeders’ Cup races closed Monday, and on Wednesday it was announced that the owners of 94 horses made their preliminary payments. The bite for nominated horses, who don’t have to be supplemented, is 1% of the purse now, with another 1% due Wednesday when post positions are drawn. Besides the Classic, there’s one $2-million race--the Turf--and five worth $1 million each--the Mile, Distaff, Sprint, Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies. Purses for the Sprint, Mile and Juvenile Fillies will also increase slightly because like the Classic they will also have supplementary horses running.

Twelve horses were pre-entered for the 1 1/4-mile Classic, but it might become an eight-horse race because four of the contenders could run in either the Turf or Mile, the other grass race.

The Daily Racing Form has made Formal Gold the early 8-5 favorite. Since running sixth in the Santa Anita Handicap and fifth in Dubai early in the year, the 4-year-old colt has run six solid races in the East, winning the Brooklyn Handicap and the Woodward at Belmont and the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park. Formal Gold has outrun Skip Away in four of their six meetings and didn’t run in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, on a day when Skip Away won by 6 1/2 lengths.

“Between the older horses and the 3-year-olds, this is going to be a really tough race,” trainer David Hofmans said. “There won’t be many 30-1 shots in this field.”

Hofmans trains one of the 3-year-olds, Touch Gold, who won the Belmont Stakes, spoiling Silver Charm’s bid for a Triple Crown sweep. Other 3-year-olds in the Classic are Deputy Commander, winner of the Travers, and Behrens, who beat Touch Gold in the Pegasus Handicap at the Meadowlands. The older horses include Skip Away, Formal Gold, Dowty, Savinio and Whiskey Wisdom. Other Classic eligibles--Big Sky Chester, Down The Aisle, Honor Glide and Taiki Blizzard--are cross-entered in grass races.

Hofmans won the Classic last year with Alphabet Soup and was third in 1994 with Dramatic Gold.

“The 3-year-olds do quite well in this race,” he said. “My horse was all out to beat a 3-year-old [Louis Quatorze] last year, and in 1994 the first four horses across the wire were 3-year-olds. The 3-year-olds at this time of the year can be very tough.”

Other early odds are 2-1 on Touch Gold, 7-2 on Skip Away, 6-1 for Behrens and 10-1 on Deputy Commander.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who has won 13 Breeders’ Cup races, more than anyone else, will run eight horses on Nov. 8, two more than Bill Mott, but it is Patrick Byrne who is positioned to have the biggest day. Byrne, a fifth-generation horseman from England, has never started a horse in the Breeders’ Cup, but this year he will probably have the favorites in the Juvenile (undefeated Favorite Trick), Juvenile Fillies (Countess Diana) and Sprint (Richter Scale).

Unlike Hine, who won’t ship Skip Away in from New York until Wednesday, Byrne’s three horses arrived from Kentucky a week ago.

“I didn’t consider doing it any other way,” Byrne said. “All three have been training well since they got here. I think the track’s in super shape. There’s a good cushion to it.”

Jewel Princess, one of five starters from trainer Wally Dollase’s barn, will try to repeat in the Distaff and become only the fourth horse to win two Breeders’ Cup races. Miesque, Bayakoa and Lure are the only double winners.

Jewel Princess will go into the Distaff on a four-race losing streak, however, and the favorite is expected to be Twice The Vice or Hidden Lake, who beat Jewel Princess by four lengths in the Beldame at Belmont on Oct. 19. Hidden Lake has won four in a row since an ownership change resulted in her moving from the barn of California trainer Walter Greenman to John Kimmel in New York.

Hidden Lake is winless in three starts at Hollywood Park. “I talked with Walter this week,” Kimmel said, “and he said she’d handle the surface out there very well.”

Only eight European horses are coming, a small number, but these grass-loving contenders are formidable in the Turf and Mile. Singspiel, second in the Turf when it was run at Woodbine last year, may be the only odds-on starter of the day, and Spinning World, 1 1/2 lengths short in the Mile last year, has won three of four starts at the same distance in France and England this year.

BREEDERS’ CUP ENTRIES, C8