THE BREEDER'S CUP

RACE 5: We'll start handicapping with this one, the longest turf race on the card.
Ouija Board (2) is the morning line favorite at 8/5. He has beaten Film Maker (4) twice now -- and one of those times after stumbling and clipping heels with another horse.
Wait a While (7) is 3-1. He has not met any of the other contenders. He is a dangerous, late-stage 3-year-old with rising Beyers.
Honey Rider (5) is 4-1 and has beaten Film Maker 3 times.
Film Maker (4) is 6-1.

There are four European horses in the race, plus Ouija Board, who has been racing in Japan, Hong Kong, Dubai and England over the past year.

OUR PICK: Wait a While. He is still improving, has won four graded stakes in a row, each by four-plus lengths. We think 3-1 is a short price though. This is the kind of race where you should look for 5-1 odds. So we'll have little patience for Wait a While if the price drops from the ML.
We don't think Wait a While is necessarily a better horse than Ouija Board, but he is very, very good, and if Ouija Board gets in any trouble at all, the race opens up for our 3-year-old. And racing, my friends, is full of trouble.

Superfecta: 2,4,5,7.

Our super paid $262. This kind of hit will make your day.

RACE 6: The sprint. The ghost of Lost in the Fog will be looking over this one.

This race breaks down to two giants: Henny Hughes (4) from the east and Bordonaro (6) from the west. The morning line gives the edge to Henny. That won't sell at our store.

We're picking the left coaster Bordonaro. He has won six in a row compared to Henny's three. Okay, he didn't really win the six. Once he placed after being whipped by an opponent's jockey. I'd say that counts as a pretty good excuse.

The rap on west coast horses is that they can only win on the super-fast California surfaces. But Bordonaro won a grade-3 at Oaklawn in April, with a Beyer of 115. He also won a $300,000 race at Gulfstream. So he's not a one-dimensional horse.
Another factor that's playing into this race is east coast bias, in which any horse that has gazed upon the Empire State Building is somehow considered superior to all others.

That said, Henny is a great sprinter and may win. If the crowd bets down Bordonaro, we go with Henny. If as expected, they bet down Henny, we go with Bordonaro. Wherever the crowd goes, we follow not.

Exotics: Every gambler in the world will box Henny and Bordonaro. We will lock in those two over 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 in the tri. That's a $10 ticket.

We were totally out of it, as Thor's Echo won and paid $33.


RACE 7: The miler on the turf.
This race has fourteen horses and a very short run to the first turn. That's bad news for Gorella (12) who is the early favorite at 4-1. It's good news for Aragorn (7) who is a stalker with a great post.

There are also a couple of euro-horses to consider, Araafa (3) who's won Grade 1 stakes in England and Ireland, and Godolphin's Librettist who has won two Grade 1 races in La Belle France. (That's France the Beautiful for all you Francophobes.)

This is a tough race to handicap.

I'm crossing out Araafa because his trainer has proven nothing in four attempts on American soil.

Aragorn has three grade 1 wins, and a just-miss in a race with heavy traffic -- a race kind of like this one. But a fair price would be 6-1.

Gorella is a wonderful horse, but it's good to remember she's a female taking on the boys. She's done that twice before in grade 1 races, and lost. Add in the outside post, and the fact that she's a closer in a crowded field, and I don't like her at the listed odds.

But it's true that in one of her grade 1 races, she lost only by a head to the great Artie Schiller, and was steadied repeatedly in that race. So she is bettable, but I see her more as hitting the board than winning.

Librettist I like. The trainer, bin Suror Saeed, wins one-third of the graded states he enters. The horse is 2 for 4 in euro grade 1s. I think 6-1 is a fat, fat price. But like Gorella, the outside post is a problem.

Aidan O'Brien, the star of Anglo-Irish racing, finally had an American success with Aussie Rules (14). He has a miserable post, but is coming off a big grade 1 win at Keeneland.

So I go with Aragorn, unless the world bets him down. I want 5-1 or 6-1. If the crowd gets wise to our Irish horse, we go with Librettist.

Exotics: Miesque's Approval (10), unlikely to win, is likely to hit the board. This race is a muddle and however we bet, it won't be a lot of money. I'm thinking super on 12, 7, 13, 10, 14.

My friend Captains Courageous won this race, a nice piece of handicapping. I was right that Miesque had a better chance than 24-1, but unlike the Captain, I didn't bet to win here. My super blew out.

RACE 8: Nine furlongs on the dirt for females. Why in the name of God would the morning line guy pick Fleet Indian (7)? Oh. I see. She's 13 for 18. Hmmm. But in a route with 14 races, I wouldn't take Secretariat at 8/5.

Pine Island (2) is the hard-charging three-year-old, with four wins or just-misses in her last four grade 1 stakes. She has not yet beaten older horses at this level, though.

Asi Siempre (12)is a nice longshot with a grade 1 win and a very consistent record. Outside post, though, so she'll likely shuffle back.

Balletto (14) has won three times in grade 1, but has an outside post and a tendency to come in second.

So we'll probably skip win betting on this tangled race. Pine Island might get a fling at 6-1, but we'd insist on the price.

Instead, we'll play the super and tri with 2,7,12,14

When I called this a tangled race, I didn't realize how awful it was going to be. Pine Island broke down and was euthanized. Fleet Indian was pulled up, and Javier Castellano taken away in an ambulance. It is not out of the question that Castellano's fall, combined with a bias racing strip, contributed to Bernardini's loss in the classic.


RACE 9: The Old World troubles flare up in this turf monster, England vs. Ireland.
English Channel (10) or Cacique (6)? These are the hype horses, but everybody seems to be forgetting about Go Deputy (1) who is as good as any in the race. Also in the mix is Hurricane Ron (7) who has won grade 1 races at Ascot, Longchamp and in Ireland. Better Talk Now (8) is in the mix too, although he has never won a grade 1.

If Go Deputy is ignored at let's say 6-1, he's worth the bet. Otherwise I'm going exotic.

Exotics: 1,6,10 on top with 8,7 as fillers.

A totally bad call on my part. The only thing I liked about this race was that Better Talk Now placed, and I had the feeling he was being underplayed.

RACE 10: New flash: Bernadini loses. Well, okay, let me rephrase that. Bernadini loses for bettors. I don't care if Bernadini can run a mile in ten seconds. There is no horse, repeat no horse, worth 3/5 or 4/5 or whatever the crowd is going to pull him down to. Anything can happen in a race. A horse might stumble, hop out of the gate, clip heels, get steadied, get trapped inside, fall back behind a wall of horses, or stop for a drink at McPaddock's bar. But somehow the crowd convinces itself that the hype horse can't lose.

Bernadini can lose. I hope he doesn't. He is a great one. But I won't win-bet him at anything under 2-1. And you'll only get 2-1 on him, my friends, in horse heaven.

Most of the real contenders in this race like to run just off the pace, and slip into overdrive in the clubhouse turn. Brother Derek will lead them, and he'd have to wire this race to win -- that's highly unlikely. But Premium Tap, Bernadini, Lawyer Ron, Lava Man, Flower Alley, and Invasor will all be trying to do the same thing at the same time. Any of them can win. Which one will find the lucky path?

Also, a super-hot pace could set up nicely for the closers, Perfect Drift, Giacomo and Sun King. There's no way to know what will happen once the gates open. That's why I'm shying away from Bernadini at the short price.

Invasor (11) might well be worth the bet if his price holds up at 5-1. If he drifts up over 6-1, I'm definitely down.

Lava Man (6) I see fading at 6-1.

So that puts it in exotic land: 3,11 on top over 2,9,8,13.

Bernardini could lose and did lose. Invasor went off at 6-1, paying $15.40. The superfecta ticket cost $240 and paid $8,786.

At my home track (CBY) I was sitting with Alpha Male and Trophy Wife. I showed Alpha Male the analysis above, and he tossed it to the table and snorted: "Negative thinking."

I said to him: "Ten minutes ago, everybody in this room was talking as if Henny Hughes couldn't lose the sprint."

As it turned out, Alpha Male bet big bucks on Bernardini at a short price and lost.

I'm sorry Bernardini lost. I included him in the exotics because I couldn't bear to bet against him entirely. We all want, I suppose, a real champion to emerge.

But there is a principle here, and something we can learn from this Breeder's Cup.

"He wanted to go, he wanted to do it," Castellano said about Bernardini. "He just didn't handle the track that well."

Every race is a roll of the dice. There is no sure thing. Henny Hughes' bad start, and Bernardini's dislike for the Churchill surface, only underline the point. Look past the hype. And there's hype in every race, it's just worse in the Breeders' Cup. There is no sense, and no money, in playing the chalk, even if his name is Bernardini.

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Overall in races 5 to 10, a lot of the better horses have drawn an outside post. This could make for a day of upsets.

Note from the Racing Form:
The races were run over a main track that will undoubtedly receive ample criticism in upcoming days, and not only for the injuries suffered by Pine Island and Fleet Indian in the Distaff. The rail was clearly the place to be for most of the day, and affected the races to such a degree that the first four Breeders' Cup races on the dirt were won by horses who stayed on the rail the whole way.