Maddux Sports Blog

The Breeders’ Cup advance entries were released on Thursday. That means that we have a first sense of whichhorses are heading for which races. We’ll look at the races in more depth next week, but for now let’s look at a few horses that first caught my eye because they land in interesting spots:

Indian Blessing - Last year’s two year old champion filly is entered in the filly and mare sprint, and she will be heavily favored if she runs there. I hope she doesn’t, though. She has also been entered in the Sprint, and I would love to see what she can do against the best open competition. It would be very fun to watch, too. She is trained by Bob Baffert, the most interesting trainer in the sport. He is always good for a quote. That would especially be the case this year, since Baffert also trains Midnight Lute, last year’s Sprint winner, and one of the top horses in a relatively weak feld his year.

Zenyatta - The monster filly has scared off a lot of competition, but she heads a heck of a race. Just eight horses are entered in the former Distaff, and even though the field is very talented, Zenyatta will be a heavy favorite. She should be, and I can’t wait to watch her. My only regret is that Zenyatta wasn’t cross-entered in the Classic. I would love to see what she could have done there.

Euro invasion - Sooner or later a European horse is going to come over and win the Classic. This could be the year - Curlin has never seen the surface, and Europeans know synthetic surfaces. They send over three impressive horses, too. Duke of Marmalade and Henrythenavigator are both trained by the great Aidan O’Brien. They have nine groups 1 wins between them, and are as solid and rested as big time Euro horses have been in a while for this race. Neither of those horses is pre-entered anywhere else, so they are going to be in the race for sure. Raven’s Pass, a big rival of Henrythenavgator, is coming too. He’s also entered in the Mile, but is likely to stay in the Classic. The Classic field took a hit with the loss of Big Brown, but it shapes up as a fascinating and surprisingly deep field.

Better Talk Now - I don’t give this horse much of a chance in the Turf, but I respect him immensely. This guy won the Turf way back in 2004, and he’s still going at a high enough level to try now.  That’s incredible for North American horses. Unfortunately, the nine year old doesn’t have a win this year. Still, you get points just for showing up in my books, and that means that this horse has a whole lot of points.

Tags: Better Talk Now, Breeders' Cup, Duke of Marmalade, Henry The Navigator, Indian Blessing, Zenyata

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Horse Race Handicapping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.