Racing Against Best Is Awesome Inspiring

Jerry Bailey, riding Skip Away, blamed defeat on the track. Frankie Dettori, aboard Swain, blamed it on the lights. But no matter how the richest race in the world is analyzed, Awesome Again was the best horse at Churchill Downs on Saturday, and now even his trainer is saying he’s the best horse in the barn.

The 15th Breeders’ Cup Classic, worth a record $4,689,920, was supposed to be a horse-of-the-year showdown between Skip Away, last year’s winner, and Silver Charm, who had shot to fame at Churchill Downs by winning last year’s Kentucky Derby. Instead, Skip Away finished a dismal sixth, Silver Charm was a worn-out second and Awesome Again, ridden by the all-time king over this track, Pat Day, scored a three-quarter-length win.

Swain, the challenger from England who had almost beaten Silver Charm in the Dubai World Cup in March, had the look of a winner until he took a right turn in the stretch and just missed finishing in the grandstand. Even so, Swain finished third, a neck behind Silver Charm.

Awesome Again, bred and owned by Frank Stronach and trained by Patrick Byrne, who won both Breeders’ Cup juvenile races a year ago, finished the year with a perfect record in six starts. All year long, Byrne thought that Touch Gold was the best older horse in his care, but on Saturday he not only rearranged those rankings, he fired Awesome Again’s name into the horse-of-the year hat.

“I guess I made a major mistake by underestimating this horse,” Byrne said. “Awesome Again has turned into a monster.”

Touch Gold won last year’s Belmont for his previous trainer, California-based David Hofmans, but has won only one race this year and finished eighth Saturday. Foot and back problems have plagued him. Both Touch Gold and Awesome Again were trained by Hofmans before Stronach, the Canadian industrialist who’s expected to buy Santa Anita soon, hired Byrne as his private trainer.

While Touch Gold ran in the important races last year, Awesome Again was given a modest campaign and seldom beat top horses. This year was the same thing: Awesome Again arrived at Byrne’s barn in April and did most of his winning against second-rate opposition. Even his win over Silver Charm at Churchill Downs in June came with caveats: Silver Charm was worn out from Dubai and Awesome Again was running with a 14-pound edge in the weights.

But for the Classic, trainer Bob Baffert said his colt was the old Silver Charm. Stronach’s horses go through life giving Baffert fits. Touch Gold beat Silver Charm in the Belmont, costing him the Triple Crown and a $5-million bonus. Wild Rush finished in a dead heat with Silver Charm at Turfway Park in September. And now Awesome Again has preempted Baffert’s horse-of- the-year speech.

Byrne has stolen the draft of that oratory. “I know everybody has tattooed Skip Away as the horse of the year,” he said, “but I don’t think you should throw out Awesome Again.”

Realistically, Skip Away deserves horse of the year. He won seven consecutive races, five of them majors, before his career ended with two defeats. Silver Charm needed to win Saturday to stir the voters.

Awesome Again, giving Day his 10th Breeders’ Cup win--more than anyone--and his third in the Classic, ran 1 1/4 miles in a slow 2:02 on a day when the track was uniformly slow. Coupled with Touch Gold and Coronado’s Quest in the betting because of overlapping ownerships, Awesome Again paid $11.40 as the third choice, behind Skip Away and Silver Charm. The Canadian-bred son of Deputy Minister and Primal Force, a Blushing Groom mare, earned $2,662,400, breaking Spend A Buck’s 1985 record for carting off the most lucre in a single day.

Victory Gallop finished fourth, ahead of Coronado’s Quest, Skip Away, Running Stag, Touch Gold, Arch and Gentlemen, who was eased by Corey Nakatani through the stretch. It was a costly outing for Gentlemen, whose owners, including Hollywood Park chairman R.D. Hubbard, paid $800,000 to supplement him into the race. Silver Charm’s owners, Bob and Beverly Lewis, paid $480,000 to play, and their colt earned a little more than $1 million for second.

A crowd of 80,452, a Breeders’ Cup record, turned out on a sunny, 50-degree day to watch six other Breeders’ Cup races and a Classic that may have had the deepest field of horses ever assembled. The other races were won by:

* Da Hoss, a rare double Breeders’ Cup winner with his narrow win in the $1-million Mile.

* Buck’s Boy, a wire-to-wire winner in the $2-million Turf.

* Escena, who survived a photo finish with Banshee Breeze in the $2-million Distaff.

* Reraise, a $120,000 supplementary entry who led all the way in the $1.1-million Sprint.

* Answer Lively, who held off longshot Aly’s Alley in the $1-million Juvenile.

* Silverbulletday, the Baffert-trained 2-year-old who beat stablemate Excellent Meeting by a half-length in the Juvenile Fillies.

Skip Away needed to finish at least third to go over the $10-million mark and break Cigar’s career earnings record. Instead, he was beaten by about four lengths and goes into retirement with a second Churchill Downs disappointment on his record. His defeats here came in the country’s two biggest races--the 1996 Kentucky Derby and Saturday’s Classic.

“I knew 50 yards into the race that I was in trouble,” said Bailey, who rode Skip Away. “He just could not handle this track. Some horses handle some tracks and some don’t. In the stretch, there was a hole there, but the hole was moving faster than I was.”

With Coronado’s Quest setting a slow pace, Skip Away was close behind, running on the inside. Arch, Swain, Silver Charm and Gentlemen were the early stalkers. At the top of the stretch, Coronado’s Quest tank emptied and Silver Charm moved to the front. Swain was just outside him, and Skip Away was in trouble on the inside. Awesome Again, who was eighth, but only five lengths back, after six furlongs, was fourth, following Silver Charm and less than two lengths back, with an eighth of a mile to go.

Some strange things happened after that. Swain, under repeated left-handed whipping from Dettori, bolted to the outside. Gary Stevens, riding Silver Charm, switched the whip from the right to the left hand, and when he hit his colt twice, he began drifting to the center of the track.

“My ride was great until the last 100 yards,” Dettori said. “He was going to win and, all of a sudden, he saw the lights. He’s not used to this sort of thing. He saw the lights and he veered right.”

Swain had moved ahead of Silver Charm in mid-stretch.

“I moved Silver Charm so he could see Swain,” Stevens said. “He dug back in and got in front again. And here comes Awesome Again. He was so far down inside, I don’t think Silver Charm ever saw him. I never even saw him until it was too late.”

Day had a choice of riding Awesome Again or Touch Gold in the Classic.

“This horse had a lot of confidence,” he said of Awesome Again. “We moved inside in the stretch and we were on our way. He didn’t believe he could be beat. He just kept running and it was all over. I believed I would fit this horse better than Touch Gold because Awesome Again has some quirks to him.”

Awesome Again is undefeated in three races at Churchill Downs. He thrives over the track that Skip Away hates.