Wednesday, October 21, 2015,  By Bob Ehalt

In looking over the pre-entries for the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf, there’s one name that stands out like a sparkling diamond.

 

 

That would be Golden Horn, who has won seven of eight starts, one of which just so happens to be Europe’s most famous race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Golden Horn’s smashing win at Longchamp, coupled with his connections’ intentions to ship across the Atlantic Ocean and race in the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf, might explain why only two other horses are willing to make the same trip from Europe (Found and Postponed) and one more will travel from Argentina (Ordak Dan) to tackle the Arc star at Keeneland Race Course on Oct. 31.

Yet for the home team, a.k.a. American-based runners, the lure of all that purse money and the prestige of the Breeders’ Cup has all of the top U.S. hopefuls planning trips to Kentucky.

The history of Arc winners in the BC Turf is another inducement as five of them have raced in the world championships and each one has lost – four of them to American-based horses.

“We’re already in the country, so it’s easier on us,” said Terry Finley, founder and president of West Point Thoroughbreds, which owns Twilight Eclipse, winner of the Grade 1 Man o’War in May. “Having an Arc winner in the race will not scare off a U.S. horse.”

That “hometown” contingent includes Big Blue Kitten, Big John B, Cage Fighter, Da Big Hoss, Red Rifle, Shining Copper, Slumber and Twilight Eclipse, as well as the horse that could turn a heroic victory in the Breeders’ Cup into a spot in a Papa John’s or Domino’s commercial, The Pizza Man.

An Illinois-bred, the gelding was a talented performer on the Midwest circuit in his early years, winning minor stakes such as the Robert F. Carey Memorial, Illinois Owners Stakes and the Buck’s Boy, a $125,000 turf stakes named after the horse whose victory in the 1998 BC Turf accounted for the first triumph in a Breeders’ Cup race by an Illinois-bred.

Then in 2014, he stepped it up a notch.

He won the Grade 3 Stars and Stripes and American St. Leger and was fourth in the Grade 1 Canadian International at Woodbine.

But as a 6-year-old in 2015 — pardon the pun — The Pizza Man truly delivered.

The gelding captured the Opening Verse at Churchill Downs and the Stars and Stripes for a second straight year, setting the stage for his breakthrough victory in no less of setting than the world renowned Arlington Million. Rallying four-wide on the turn over a soggy, soft turf course, he surged to a short lead in the stretch and held off Big Blue Kitten by a neck, with the pacesetting Shining Copper finishing another three-quarters of a length behind in third.

“I’m always confident when I ride him. He loves to win and knows where the wire is,” jockey Florent Geroux said after The Pizza Man became the first Illinois-bred to win the state’s richest race.

Since the Arlington Million was part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge’s “Win and You’re In” program, The Pizza Man and trainer Roger Brueggemann were bound for Keeneland and the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

While Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Big Blue Kitten rebounded from his loss in the Arlington Million with a victory in course-record time for a mile and a half in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park, Brueggemann opted for a less traditional spot for a horse with an eye towards the BC Turf.

To prepare his gelding for the mile and a half test at Keeneland, Brueggemann decided to pay an early visit to Lexington and used the $1 million Shadwell Turf Mile on Oct. 3 as The Pizza Man’s final tune-up for the world championships.

The Pizza Man finished second to Grand Arch over soft turf, but the way he closed with gusto, rallying from seventh at the eighth pole to miss by a head, could be highly useful seasoning for a race filled with a powerful dose of international flavor.

“He ran huge,” said owner Richard Papiese of Midwest Thoroughbreds, who won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint with Work All Week. “If there weren’t so many horses across the track, he gets up for the win. For all the folks who may have thought he couldn’t run a mile: Surprise. It’s a question of two turns and he could probably run a two-turn race at six furlongs on a small track and run big. I couldn’t be happier. The instructions were ‘Where he breaks, he breaks.’ We wanted a target and we didn’t want to be a target.

“He got more out of this race than you could ever imagine for going into the Breeders’ Cup and that’s why we ran here instead of any other race. It’s about bigger and better things down the line.”

And with an Arc winner in the field for the first time since 2007, the Breeders’ Cup Turf is surely a bigger and better thing.

fonte : Breeder’s Cup