Breeders’ Cup

Race Analysis

Saturday Churchill Downs

Channel 4

10 a.m.

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PP Horse Jockey Odds 1. Victory Gallop Alex Solis 15-1 2. Swain Lafranco Dettori 10-1 3. a-Awesome Again Pat Day 9-2 4. a-Coronado’s Quest Kent Desormeaux 9-2 5. Arch Shane Sellers 15-1 6. Skip Away Jerry Bailey 9-5 7. Running Stag John Velazquez 50-1 8. Silver Charm Gary Stevens 8-5 9. a-Touch Gold Chris McCarron 9-2 10. Gentlemen Corey Nakatani 6-1

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a-Common ownership entry. Gentlemen $800,000 supplemental entry. Silver Charm $480,000 supplemental entry.

Trainers (by post position): 1. W. Elliot Walden; 2. Saeed Bin Suroor; 3. Patrick Byrne; 4. Shug McGaughey; 5. Frank Brothers; 6. Sonny Hine; 7. Philip Mitchell; 8. Bob Baffert; 9. Patrick Byrne; 10. Robert Mandella.

Owners (by post position): 1. Prestonwood Farm Inc.; 2. Godolphin Racing Inc.; 3. Stronach Stables Inc.; 4. Stuart Janney and Stonerside Stable; 5. Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider; 6. Carolyn Hine; 7. Richard Cohen; 8. Robert and Beverly Lewis; 9. Stronach Stables and Stonerside Stable; 10, R.D. Hubbard.

Conditions: 3-year-olds and up. Weights: Coronado’s Quest and Victory Gallop 122 pounds; others 126. Distance: 1 1/4 miles. First place: $2,662,400. Second place: $1,024,000. Third place: $614,400. Fourth place: $286,720. Fifth place: $102,400.

* Story line: For most of the year, the outcome of the Breeders’ Cup’s richest race seemed a foregone conclusion.

It seemed Skip Away, who won seven consecutive races in the first nine months of 1998, would cap his career by becoming the first two-time winner of the Classic and sail into retirement as the richest thoroughbred in history.

Not so fast. Skip Away was badly beaten as the heavy favorite in the Jockey Club Gold Cup last month at Belmont Park. He finished third, 10 1/4 lengths behind Wagon Limit, a horse he had dusted three times.

Meanwhile, Silver Charm, who looked done when he was beaten by 27 lengths in Del Mar’s San Diego Handicap in late July, has rebounded, winning (in a dead heat) the Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway Park and the Goodwood Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Santa Anita.

Factor in Awesome Again, who has won all five of his starts this year against softer competition; Touch Gold, who is capable of beating any horse on his best day; Swain, who came within a nose of beating Silver Charm in the Dubai World Cup on March 28; Gentlemen, who finished in front of Skip Away in the Jockey Club; Coronado’s Quest, a multiple stakes winner; Victory Gallop, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness runner-up and Belmont Stakes winner; and the improving 3-year-old Arch, and you have the most anticipated race of the year.

* Keys to the race: If Skip Away runs the way he did earlier this year, the rest of the field is shooting for second. If he is tailing off, the way Cigar did at the end of his career in 1996, Silver Charm and Touch Gold are the two most likely to succeed. Silver Charm runs well at Churchill Downs and Touch Gold beat Silver Charm in the 1997 Belmont.

* The pick: Skip Away is the horse of the year no matter what happens Saturday, and a fitting way for him to exit would be with a win. The concern is that the worst performance of his career came over this track when he finished 12th in the 1996 Kentucky Derby.