Another One Bites the Dirt

There’s a sardonic joke going around the barns at Belmont Park.

“How do you know you’ve got a good horse?” one trainer will ask another.

“Because he’s not running in the Breeders’ Cup,” is the answer.

One by one, top horses have been defecting from the 20th Breeders’ Cup, which will be run at Santa Anita two weeks from today. The latest is Ruler’s Court, who probably would have been favored in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile off of his 14-length victory in stakes-record time in the Norfolk last Sunday at Santa Anita.

“This is a major disappointment,” said Sherwood Chillingworth, executive vice president of the Oak Tree Racing Assn., which leases the track from Santa Anita and is the host for the eight Breeders’ Cup races. “Off that race last Sunday, I was saying that if there’s one sure thing on Breeders’ Cup day, it would be Ruler’s Court.”

All of Santa Anita’s 20,000 reserved seats have been sold and with the infield seats also gone, Chillingworth is estimating a crowd of 55,000, which would compare favorably with the attendance at the most recent California Breeders’ Cups, at Hollywood Park in 1997 and Santa Anita in 1993. Other than at Churchill Downs, a Breeders’ Cup hasn’t drawn 55,000 since Santa Anita in 1993.

For Chillingworth, even a good turnout won’t diminish the letdown of not being able to show off racing’s best horses.

“It’s bad for the Breeders’ Cup as well,” Chillingworth said. “They’re calling these races the World Thoroughbred Championships, but with all the horses we’ve lost, will they really be that?”

Mineshaft, the current favorite for horse of the year, has been declared out of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, at $4 million the richest race in the U.S. Also not running in the Classic are Funny Cide and Empire Maker, whose Triple Crown rivalry gave racing a significant boost earlier in the year; and Candy Ride, who had emerged as Mineshaft’s chief rival with a solid victory in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar.

Funny Cide, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, is running at Belmont in a race for New York-breds the week before the Breeders’ Cup. Mineshaft was retired after winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup last month. Empire Maker, the Belmont Stakes winner, was unable to run in the Gold Cup, has also been retired. Candy Ride’s owners, who would have had to pay a prohibitive fee of $800,000 to make their horse eligible for the Classic, say he is being rested for next year’s campaign.

“The Mineshaft defection particularly hurt,” Chillingworth said. “I was surprised, because I just didn’t believe that [co-owner] Will Farish would pass up the opportunity. As a sportsman, I thought he would bring his horse. I know they’re saying the horse has bone chips dating back to early in the year, and maybe that’s true, but it was pretty late in the game to be telling us that.”

Farish, a prominent Kentucky breeder and the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, was one of the founders of the Breeders’ Cup and a longtime member of the board of directors.

“At the start, I thought this year’s Classic was going to be the best we’d have in the last 10 or 15 years,” Chillingworth said. “Now we can only hope Perfect Drift’s people come with their horse.”

It would also add sizzle to the Breeders’ Cup if Azeri, the defending horse of the year, ran in the Classic instead of the Distaff, which she won last year at Arlington Park. But Azeri was beaten by Got Koko, another female, as her 11-race win streak ended Sept. 28 at Santa Anita. Post-race tests showed that Azeri had a high white-cell blood count, and this probably is not the right time for her to face males.

Besides the Classic and the Juvenile, other Cup races have been diluted by dropouts. Dalakhani, winner of the Arc de Triomphe, was retired Thursday rather than run in the Turf. “They didn’t think he’d fancy Santa Anita,” said Patrick Downes, the Irish stallion manager for the Aga Khan, who owns Dalakhani.

Sheik Mohammed, who owns Ruler’s Court, has never won the Derby and is avoiding the Juvenile because it’s a race that has never produced a Derby winner. Five minutes after Silver Wagon won the Hopeful in August at Saratoga, his trainer, Ralph Ziadie, said that he wasn’t going to ruin a Derby prospect by running him in the Juvenile.

Foreign grass horses appear to be a deep group, but High Chaparral, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf, is not a cinch to run this time. In fact, the Daily Racing Form was hard-pressed to collect more than seven probables for the Turf, which would be the smallest field in its history. The Europeans have painful memories of the two previous Breeders’ Cups that were run at Santa Anita. In 1986 and 1993, they were blanked on the grass. In 1986, Dancing Brave, the Arc winner, wilted in the heat and finished fourth as a 1-2 shot in the Turf.

Dirt horses that shipped in from Belmont Park also performed dismally in 1993. Horses with Belmont preps were favored in four of the five dirt races, and none of them won. Chillingworth, as he contemplated this year’s depleted fields, wondered Friday just how long New Yorkers’ memories are.

“We’ve got a new tote board, one that cost almost $2 million,” Chillingworth said. “The reason we got it was to have room for 14 betting interests in each race. I told somebody the other day that the way the Breeders’ Cup is going, we might be able to cut the board in half and still have enough room.”

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