Maddux Sports Blog

It was a great day at the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday. Zenyatta’s win in the Classic was, without exaggeration, one of the top five racing moments of my life – and I have seen a lot of them. She is truly an all-time great. She should be the horse of the year in my book without question – and that’s no insult to Rachel Alexandra. Rachel won a Triple Crown race and beat older horses, but Zenyatta’s win over older horses was far more impressive, and it came in the richest race in North America – one a female horse had never won. The field in Zenyatta’s race was far deeper than Rachel’s as well. I’d be fine with a split award this year, but if there is one winner it has to be Zenyatta.

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There are few things harder in gambling to win than a pick six. It costs a fortune to play it properly, and it all can be derailed too easily. I haven’t done any Breeders’ Cup content this year because I don’t get the sense that most people here care about the ponies as much as I do. For kicks now, though, I’m going to try to put together a winning pick six ticket. It’s play money, so I plan to spend a lot of it. I can afford to, though – the pick six paid more than $155,000 today, and should be much bigger tomorrow. Here we go:

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I just got back from the Breeders’ Cup, so I will hold off looking at what we were learned on the football front this weekend until I can settle in and get my bearings again. Before I shift my head entirely back into football, though, let’s just take a few minutes to close down my thoughts on the Breeders’ Cup. After months of preparing for the races, and a great, hot day enjoying them, here’s what sticks in my mind:

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The biggest race on the Breeders’ Cup card, and one of the two or three biggest in the world, will crown the second day of racing’s biggest festival. This year’s version might not have the depth that other year’s has had, but it has all the star power at the top anyone could want. Curlin has won more money than any horse ever has, and he has beat top horses on tracks around North America and in Dubai. He has lost just once since the Haskell last year, and that was a game second in his first and only try on the turf. He’s racing royalty – the best of hs generation.

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We’ll look at the Classic in detail tomorrow, but today I want to look at three of the higher profile races to be run on Saturday – the Sprint, Juvenile, and Turf.

Sprint

This is perhaps he most wide open race on the whole card – no horse seems to want to make a claim to this one. Five horses in the nine horse field are 6/1 or lower. The current second choice, at 7/2, seems like he could be the favorite by post time. That’s Midnight Lute, the defending Sprint champion. The public will love his past success, and normally he’d be an attractive horse, but this Bob Baffert trainee has had an odd year. He has run just once, and it was a disaster. He can’t be written off, but he has too many question for my taste. The current favorite, at 3/1, is Street Boss. He makes solid sense here. He’s California based, he has trained well at Santa Anita, his stalking style suits the track well, and he has six wins and two seconds in eight tries this year, including three graded stakes wins. As a Canadian I have to like the Canadian horse, Fatal Bullet, as well. He’s at 6/1, and he presents good value at that price. He has won his last three races over synthetic surfaces, and he has set two track records in that time. My tickets haven’t been firmly established for this race, but they will feature the last two horses mentioned prominently. I’ll also probably look at Cost of Freedom at 4/1. This former claimer has won over Pro-Ride. Not many horses on this whole card can say that.

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Tomorrow we’ll do our weekly look ahead at the weekend football action. Thursday we’ll look at three of the more interesting races on the BC card, and on Friday we’ll take a look at the Classic. Today, though, I’ll look at eight different things that are catching my attention as the Breeders’ Cup draws near:

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We’ll start our look at the Breeders’ Cup by looking at the races that the public is likely to have a clear opinion on. The Classic will fit into this category thans to Curlin, but we’ll leave that one until later. These are the races that you’ll either want to single in your exotics or look for a way to beat the favorite. As it turns out, the two likely no-brainers both fall on the Friday card. You could argue that there are a lot of gender-based reasons for that, but I think that it is just a coincidence.

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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:

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The Breeders’ Cup is just over two weeks away. I’m going to be there, so I couldn’t be more excited about it drawing near. We’ll look at specific races in more detail as we draw nearer the event, which is at Santa Anita in greater L.A. on October 24 and 25. For now, though, I wanted to give a quick watch list for those of you who only follow the ponies on the big racing days in May and October. These are some of the horses that you’ll be hearing a lot about between now and the big days:

Ladies Classic

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