Cold Cup: Arlington Set to Replace Oak Tree

The Breeders’ Cup, which has dodged some cold-weather bullets before, apparently is ready to really roll the dice in the fall of 2002 by staging its eight-race, $13-million day in suburban Chicago.

Although Breeders’ Cup officials have made no announcement, Arlington Park’s chairman, Dick Duchossois, is eager to host the event for the first time, and the Breeders’ Cup board is expected to soon name the Illinois track as the site for 2002. Next year’s Breeders’ Cup was reopened for bidding after the Oak Tree Racing Assn. at Santa Anita was forced to turn down the event for the second consecutive year. Oak Tree’s landlord at Santa Anita, Frank Stronach’s Magna Entertainment Inc., has again told its unhappy tenant that extensive remodeling would prevent the track from having a Breeders’ Cup.

Since the Breeders’ Cup was first run, at Hollywood Park in 1984, there has been an informal rotation of four tracks--Hollywood Park, Churchill Downs, Gulfstream Park and Belmont Park--but Cup officials, pleased with moving the races to Woodbine outside Toronto in 1996, were eager to leave the loop one more time, in 2003. That plan was moved up a year, to 2002, because of Oak Tree’s problems at Santa Anita, and Arlington and Lone Star Park, near Dallas, were eager to fill the gap.

Lone Star’s day may still come, but it is believed that Arlington, which merged with Churchill Downs Inc. last year, will get the Breeders’ Cup first. Many in racing feel that the 79-year-old Duchossois, who almost single-handedly rebuilt Arlington after its grandstand and clubhouse were destroyed in a fire in 1985, has earned the right to host the event in the twilight of his career.

Other than Woodbine, the only time the Breeders’ Cup has strayed from the four-track circuit was when Aqueduct--one of Belmont Park’s sister tracks--ran the races in 1985. This year’s races will be run at Belmont Park on Oct. 27.

The coldest Breeders’ Cup days, when the temperature was 43 degrees, were run at Belmont Park in 1990 and at Churchill Downs in 1991. Next year’s event, as usual, would be run in either late October or early November, when the average temperature in Chicago is about 40 degrees. Only two Breeders’ Cups have been run on off-tracks--at Churchill in 1988 and at Belmont in 1995. The Breeders’ Cup lucked out at Woodbine, where the weather was sunny, with 60-degree temperatures, in 1996.

No Breeders’ Cup attendance records would be set at Arlington Park. Duchossois intentionally downsized the track when it was rebuilt, to create an intimacy not unlike watching a Chicago Cubs’ game at Wrigley Field, but that means Arlington will have to shoehorn in the fans for a Breeders’ Cup. Gulfstream, with a relatively small plant, has made do for three Breeders’ Cups, while twice drawing crowds of less than 50,000.

Gary Stevens will leave his Hollywood Park base next month to ride in England, where he rode for part of 1999. Stevens’ overseas trip will include the Royal Ascot meet. He will also give his arthritic knees a rest before returning to the California circuit, for the Del Mar meet that opens July 18. . . . Chris McCarron has been named to ride Balto Star in the Belmont Stakes on June 9. . . . Riboletta, one of more than 500 broodmares that have lost their foals in Kentucky in recent weeks, will return to racing. Last year’s champion older filly or mare is headed back to Hollywood Park and trainer Eduardo Inda, who will map a fall campaign. Kentucky breeders are still puzzled by the foaling epidemic--dubbed mare reproductive loss syndrome--that has stunned the industry. Scientists from the University of Kentucky said Thursday that cyanide occurring naturally in black cherry trees is the apparent cause, with caterpillars most likely transmitting it to the mares.