Flatter: We interrupt this cloud for a Breeders’ Cup silver lining
As racing fans gather by the thousands at Santa Anita thisweekend, NBC Sports will focus the rest of the nation’s attention on acompetitor who is knee-deep in cheating accusations with the threat ofadministrative punishment hanging like an ominous cloud overhead.
That will be when it switches from racing to cover theMichigan Wolverines.
See what I did there?
While college football deals with the great Ann Arborsign-stealing scandal, the sport of kings tightens its focus on the Great RacePlace for the first Breeders’ Cup to be conducted under the aegis of theHorseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s medication rules.
It has not been the integrity that has drawn attention thisweek as much as the safety. The deaths of Practical Move and Geaux Rocket Ride madethe news in a way that racing wanted about as much as the Big Ten Conferencewas eager to have Jim Harbaugh in its spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Yet that game will go on Saturday night at 7 Eastern, 6Central time, on most of these NBC stations. It will be another celebration offootball just as it is pretty much four days a week every week in the fall. So itwill be, too, for our game with the 14 Breeders’ Cup races Friday and Saturday,right up to and even through the kickoff at the big house.
Because of NBC’s football commitment, the $6 million Classicthat is America’s richest race will not be the last of the Breeders’ Cupchampionships this year. And I am loathe to call them championships, especiallysince those really are not decided until the Eclipse Award votes are revealedin January.
Whither the poor Classic. It will not be the closing actSaturday night, and it will not star Flightline or Zenyatta or Tiznow or Cigar.It feels this year like getting an invitation to go to a concert at someunknown venue to see The Weeknd only to find out it actually was some unknownwho was playing at a concert this weekend.
Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo was the futures favorite inthe Classic before he was withdrawn Tuesday with that cranky heel. That seemedunfortunately appropriate in a year when Forte, the top Kentucky Derby betting choice,was scratched on race day. Since it still is 2023 for another couple months,the eventual winner of the Derby had to be taken out of the Breeders’ Cup,because fate says that is what has to happen this year.
With Preakness victor National Treasure pointed to the DirtMile, I posited the question, when was the last time the Breeders’ Cup Classicdid not have any of the winners of that year’s springtime classics? Then I rememberedwhen Justify won them all in 2018 and did not race again. There went anythought that this was unprecedented.
Looking back on that Classic from five years ago, it was notonly Justify’s absence that watered the wine. The previous year’s top juvenileGood Magic was retired a month after he flopped in the Travers and was found tohave a high white count in his blood. Diversify, another Grade 1 winner whoqualified via the Whitney, was out after he lost weight and stopped trainingwell.
Even without a great story to build on going into thatClassic, the race provided one when Accelerate won it. Suddenly we had afour-time winner of Grade 1 races that were 1 1/4 miles each, all in the same5-year-old season. That would have been worthy of a horse-of-the-year trophy ifnot for Justify’s Triple Crown. The Hronis brothers and trainer John Sadlerjust had to wait for Flightline’s star to rise four years later.
Come what may, the Breeders’ Cup Classic of 2023 willproduce a good story. So will the race before it. Mostahdaf vs. Auguste Rodinin the Turf has to be the envy of fans in Europe who have to stay up untilnearly midnight to see it.
There will be others good stories, too. Maybe not 14, butsomething always happens to make the Breeders’ Cup memorable, hopefully in apositive way.
After what happened with Geaux Rocket Ride and PracticalMove, there will be collectively quiet breath-holding at Santa Anita betweennow and about 8:05 p.m. EDT, when Elite Power’s bid to clinch a second straightchampionship will put the Sprint and, with it, the Breeders’ Cup to bed.
The drive-by media of Los Angeles has mentioned the horse deaths,but it has not risen to the point of the obsession it became on local news in2019 when dozens of racehorses died at Santa Anita. In an area that still stopsto watch helicopter coverage of police chases, even legitimate, bad-newsstories can be twisted into shiny objects faster than it takes Andy Cohen towatch what happens live.
If Cody’s Wish wins another Dirt Mile for his teenageinspiration Cody Dorman, that moment will be the positive that we all covet, eventhough it will happen before noon local time Saturday. Why that race was notmade part of the NBC show starting an hour later deserves some sort ofexplanation that hopefully does not end with been there, done that.
If Japan were to win again more than once the way it did twoyears ago at Del Mar, that story will be worth the time to tell. Ushba Tesoroand Songline could give us all more reasons to envy the track experience at theirhome courses, which showcase the best and most loyal racing fans in the world.
At the risk of being sanguine in the face of racing’s real problems,maybe the Breeders’ Cup was meant to take us away from them, even if only for aminute or two 14 times in the next two days.
So as not to gild that lily, there is something to beremembered in the very name of the event. Underscore the word breeders. Theynot only are the benefactors of this grand idea that was hatched four decadesago, they are the beneficiaries, too.
The object of this game is to have horses earn their way topedestals. Those pedestals are the breeding farms that produce this game’sgreatest stars and then take them away just before we really get to know them.That is truer now more than ever.
Like I said, we should enjoy this two-day racing bacchanalwhile we can. We can get back to real life Sunday. Or maybe when the Wolverineskick off against Purdue.
