It is difficult to describe the uniqueness of the Breeders’ Cup to anyone who has not experienced it first hand. European racegoers are lucky to see the horses for five minutes in the parade ring before a race. At the Cup, all but a few of the runners in the 14 Grade One event exercise on the track each morning of the week before the meet, decked out in their big-race saddle cloths for easy identification and under the watchful gaze of … well, anyone and everyone who is minded to turn up.
Every horse with the famous purple saddle cloth is an elite racehorse, one of a tiny handful from the six-figure global foal crop good enough to run at the Cup, and there are around 200 stabled at Keeneland in Kentucky this week. But there is still an irresistible buzz that sweeps around the track when a real monster of the dirt heads out to breeze in the early light, and the excitement will have been at fever pitch this week as Flightline prepares to defend his unbeaten record in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Cigar, the dual winner Tiznow, Zenyatta and American Pharoah are among the outstanding champions - with a presence to match - that have lived up to their advance billing over the last 30 years, and Flightline is long odds-on to emulate them this weekend. And, perhaps, to overtake them too on the Breeders’ Cup’s 39-year-old honour roll of all-time greats.
The relative merits of champions past and present will always be a source of fierce and unavailing debate among fans, but Flightline’s official rating of 139 after his astounding performance in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in September already suggests that he is the best dirt runner of the recent decades. Flavien Prat, his jockey, was easing off for much of the final furlong but he still beat Country Grammer – the Dubai World Cup winner back in March – by 19¼ lengths.
It was as remarkable as any performance by a dirt horse since Secretariat’s 31-length destruction of his field in the 1973 Belmont Stakes. For nearly half a century, the style and the detail of “Big Red’s” Belmont has also been the big stick with which pretenders to his greatness have been soundly beaten. He covered the mile-and-a-half at very close to sprinting pace from the off, hit the quarter-pole in a faster time than he had when winning the Kentucky Derby five weeks earlier, and eventually stopped the clock in 2min 24sec. Along with his winning times in the Derby and Preakness Stakes, the other two events in the US Triple Crown, it remains a record to this day.
An injury shortly after arriving at John Sadler’s barn as a juvenile robbed Flightline of the chance to emulate Secretariat’s achievements as a three-year-old, and he did not see a track until 24 April 2021, a week before the best of his contemporaries went to post for the Kentucky Derby.
Flightline’s owners, including the California-based brothers Kosta and Pete Hronis who have a 37.5% share, would have been dreaming of a run at Churchill Downs when they paid $1m for the son of Tapit at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sale in 2019. But they knew they had a good horse on their hands, and he started favourite before finishing 13 lengths clear of his six rivals. “He just floats over the ground,” Hronis texted the veteran US turf writer Steve Haskin afterwards.
“We knew early on that he was something special that no-one had ever seen before.” Four-and-a-half months later, Flightline won another minor event by 13 lengths, and then stepped straight up to Grade One company in the Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on 26 December. He won that by 11½, then waltzed through his four-year-old debut in a Grade One at Belmont by six before heading off to his – so far – career-defining run in the Pacific Classic.
It has been a meteoric ascent through the ranks, a concentrated burst of brilliance that sees Flightline already sitting just 1lb behind Frankel’s mark of 140 at the end of a 14-race career, with an opportunity to push on Sir Henry Cecil’s great, unbeaten champion on Saturday.
European fans will point out, quite fairly, that Frankel posted several 140-worthy performances over the course of his career, while Flightline could well retire to stud with just six starts in the book after Saturday’s Classic. There will, inevitably, be a sense of unfinished business should he do so.
But before there can be any debate about a five-year-old career, Flightline needs to confirm his supernatural brilliance on American racing’s grandest stage. His draw in stall four is ideal but the opposition is far stronger than any field he has faced to date. Epicenter, who confirmed himself the best three-year-old around with a decisive win in the Travers Stakes in August, is a clear second-favourite, while Life Is Good, last year’s Dirt Mile winner at Del Mar, is another new and high-class opponent for the odds-on favourite.
Both of Flightline’s most obvious rivals are well-travelled and experienced, while the favourite has made only one start outside California and could find an autumnal Kentucky is a different, potentially unsettling experience.
Repeated viewing of his Pacific Classic victory, though, takes none of the shine off the excitement. He already looks like a horse for the ages and the Classic could prove it beyond all doubt.
Fontwell Park 12.30 Kissesforkatie 1.05 Teddy Blue 1.40 Whatsupwithyou (nap) 2.15 Parliament Hill 2.50 Forward Plan (nb) 3.25 Echo Watt 4.00 Tara Iti
Exeter 12.40 Outlaw Peter 1.15 Lallygag 1.50 The Height Of Fame 2.25 Thyme Hill 3.00 Killer Kane 3.35 Dolos 4.08 Lightning Attack
Hexham 12.48 Aazza 1.23 Noplacetobe 1.58 De Legislator 2.35 Feivel 3.10 Beat Box 3.45 Monticello
Newcastle 2.30 Pocket The Packet 3.05 Reclaim Victory 3.40 Skilled Warrior 4.15 Novak 4.45 Pay For Adaay 5.15 Hail Sezer 5.45 Pockley 6.15 Golden Rainbow
Silver Knott best of raiders on Breeders’ Cup day one
Runners trained in Europe still head the market for all three of the turf events on Future Stars Friday at the Breeders’ Cup in Kentucky but the draw has not been kind to either The Platinum Queen, in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, or Meditate, clear favourite for the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf, which leaves Silver Knott (9.40) as the likeliest winner for the visitors in the Juvenile Turf.
Charlie Appleby won this race for the third time in nine seasons last year with Modern Games and Silver Knott arrives with a similarly progressive profile.
There is no standout contender among the locally-trained runners and Major Dude, the best of them on ratings, has an outside draw so Aidan O’Brien’s Victoria Road may be able to complete a 1-2 for the Europeans in a race they have won eight times in 13 runnings.
Down Royal 1.30 Saylavee is Willie Mullins’s second-string on jockey bookings but Danny Mullins is no stranger to that and she is over-priced at 5-1 to follow up her impressive hurdling debut in September.
Exeter 1.50 He is now 20lb higher than for the first success in his current three-race winning streak but The Height Of Fame has been posting some decent times along the way and could have scope for at least one more victory.
Down Royal 2.05 Little to choose on the ratings between stable-companions Pied Piper and Fil Dor, but the former’s race fitness may tip the balance after an impressive return at Cheltenham last month.
Exeter 2.25 His two opponent have experience over fences on their side but top-class staying hurdler Thyme Hill has always looked like a chaser in waiting and is hard to oppose on his debut over the bigger obstacles.
Down Royal 2.40 Gladiatorial is prone to the odd mistake but his jumping was mainly sound at Kelso last time and he has an obvious chance on that form.
Exeter 3.00 Joe Tizzard has his string in excellent form, with five wins from his last 10 runners, and Killer Kane remains fairly weighted on his form in the spring.
Exeter 3.35 Harry Cobden, understandably, is on the Grade One-winning Greaneteen but his stable companion Dolos, an 8-1 shot, gets 20lb from the top weight and finished a close second in this race three years ago off a 9lb higher mark.
Keeneland 7.00 Richard Fahey’s The Platinum Queen tops the ratings and the betting but Hollie Doyle will need to draw on all of her considerable talents to win from stall 12 and Love Reigns, fourth home in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot, makes much more appeal at the prices to give Wesley Ward a fourth straight win in this race.
Racing was abandoned at Sedgefield on Thursday after two horses suffered fatal injuries in the closing stages of the Stanley and Lillian Thompson Memorial Novice Hurdle, the fifth race on the card.
Sweet Auburn, the second-favourite for the five-runner contest, was pulled up after breaking down between the third-last and second-last flights, and Thermusa, the odds-on favourite, then also suffered a fatal injury while in the lead on the run to the final obstacle.
After an inspection of the course by trainers, jockeys and officials, the decision was taken to abandon the rest of the card.
“Nothing was found, but ultimately the safety of horses is paramount, which is why we have chosen to abandon racing,” Michael Naughton, the clerk of the course, told Sky Sports Racing.
"Everybody that went up [to the final bend] said the ground is perfectly fine. Both bends have being realigned and there is an adverse camber on that bend turning into the home straight. Everybody has said it has been an age old thing here and that is what they're blaming it on.
"We're erring on the side of safety for horse welfare and jockey welfare. It will be all hands on deck, we'll do a thorough search of the top bend and make sure that everything is 100 per cent right for racing next week.” Greg Wood
Keeneland 7.40 A slow start left Chop Chop in a hopeless position in the Grade One Alcibiades Stakes over track and trip last time, but she charged through the field from three out to go down by a nose behind Wonder Wheel and can reverse the form here.
Keeneland 8.20 Meditate is the clear pick on form but stall 10 is a major concern while Delight, the second-favourite, has fared little better in nine so the improving Spirit Gal, a comfortable winner at Dundalk last time, could be worth chancing at double-figure odds.
Keeneland 9.00 Cave Rock is a dual Grade One winner already and is impossible to oppose in his attempt to give Bob Baffert a record-breaking sixth win in the Juvenile.
