By Barry Faulkner
The Breeders’ Cup started life at dear old Hollywood Park back in 1984, when there were just seven championship races on the card. Five of them were on dirt; the Classic, Distaff, Sprint and two Juvenile races, one for colts and geldings and the other for fillies. They were joined by a couple on grass to attract a European challenge, with those being the Turf and the Mile. In 1999 they were joined by the Filly & Mare Turf, and that’s the way it stayed until the pivotal year of 2007.
That was when the annual extravaganza was expanded to a two-day event, with the first taking place at Monmouth Park, where the Dirt Mile, Filly & Mare Sprint and Juvenile Turf were added to the menu. The Turf Sprint and Juvenile Fillies Turf arrived the following year. The Marathon and Juvenile Sprint, both on dirt, briefly joined the party until being discarded, before the current schedule was settled in 2018, with the inclusion of the Juvenile Turf Sprint. That brought the number of turf races from two at the outset to seven, half the total number of races across the two days.
This will be the 43rd Breeders’ Cup, but it is also the 20th since the expansion, and it is the most recent 19 renewals that I will be largely concentrating on here.
As usual, I will also be looking at all 14 individual Breeders’ Cup divisions, trying to develop a few guidelines in the pursuit of winners across the two days.
(Note: All the betting data presented here is based on returns from the local US totes)
Quiz question: Can you name the five tracks that have hosted the Breeders’ Cup just once? Answer to follow at the bottom of this article.
FAVOURITES IN THE YEARS SINCE THE 2007 EXPANSION
OVERALL
In 2022, the last time the Breeders’ Cup was contested at Keeneland, there were five winning favourites, but backing the jolly blind would have led to a level stake loss of 7.5%, although that is still better than the tote take out.
In the 19 years I am concentrating on here, there have been 253 races in total, 133 on dirt and 120 on turf. This is how the jolly did on the main track, on grass, and overall.
Prior to the expansion of the number of Breeders’ Cup divisions, favourites struck at a rate of 36.1%, which resulted in a level stakes loss of 3.3%, well below the average take out from the host tracks’ tote pools. However, since the introduction of the additional races from 2007 onwards, following the favourite blind has become more costly overall, with the percentage of winning favourites dropping to 30.8%, delivering a loss of 15.0%.
The one area that has been slightly less calamitous is betting odds-on favourites. Before 2007, a strike rate of 43.6% yielded a 28.7% level stake loss. From that point on, the win percentage advanced to 46.3%, although that reduced the deficit to 22.1%, which is still well above the win pool take outs and still an excellent way to do your dough.
BREEDERS' CUP IN KENTUCKY SINCE EXPANSION
This will be the seventh time that the Breeders’ Cup championship races, with the expanded format, will have been contested in the Bluegrass State, with the other six runnings evenly split between Churchill Downs and this year’s venue, Keeneland.
With the exception of a couple of divisions, which I will discuss when looking at the individual races, the Breeders’ Cup turf tracks in the Commonwealth of Kentucky have been superfast highways on the road to penury. However, the dirt races contested there have delivered a modest profit of 5.1%, with the main-track races for fillies and mares the main factor in delivering that surplus.
THE ROAD TO VICTORY
As usual, I have looked at the last prep race location for the Breeders’ Cup winners on their road to the big day.
Many trainers have tried and tested ‘road maps’ to get their charges to the big show. The table below is a snapshot of the locations used for final preps en route to the Breeders’ Cup, comparing the success rates of each. I have split the outcomes between those occasions when the races have been run in California compared with elsewhere (six in Kentucky and one in New Jersey), looking at dirt and turf separately.
FUTURE STARS FRIDAY
The first all two-year-old Friday card the Breeders’ Cup arrived in 2018, with the same line up of races the following year before it was given its title ‘Future Stars Friday’ in 2020. I think it is a cracking way get the party started, with five excellent championship races to whet the appetite for the rest of the horse racing feast.
Although the record of favourites in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile races overall in the time period I have looked at is not strong, at least the level stakes loss in Kentucky has been well below the tote take out. That gives horseplayers some hope, even if it is only of the ‘theory working well, send more money’ type.
As usual, I have had a look at all the individual Juvenile divisions to try to discover any angles that may assist on the way to profitable punting.
For four of the races, I have provided details of the favourites’ performances in the six runnings in Kentucky. With so few races to consider, they are for information purposes only, rather than as a means of establishing hard and fast guidelines.
NOTES
1) Runners arriving from a New York prep have to be respected when the Breeders’ Cup dirt races are held anywhere, but particularly away from California. Close to half of the winners take that route from the 31% of runners competing.
2) No one will be startled to see the record of European-prepped runners in turf races, with the proportion of winners significantly exceeding the percentage of runners. The five winners in the seven turf races last year bumped the success rate in California slightly ahead of that elsewhere.
3) Runners prepped for turf divisions in California generally underperform, but particularly when competing away from the Golden State.
4) I am not sure that many will give it a go, but no horse has won a Breeders’ Cup race on dirt from a European prep since the number of divisions were increased in 2007.
5) My catchall ‘Other’ category includes US tracks not in California or Kentucky, together with Woodbine, and increasingly Japan. Collectively, they have been hitting ahead of par.
Quiz answer: Aqueduct in 1985; Woodbine in 1996; Arlington in 2002; Lone Star Park in 2004; Monmouth Park in 2007.
