The Breeders' Cup World Championships is a two-day meeting
which takes place on November 6-7 at Keeneland in, Kentucky, this year.
The meeting features 14 races with a total of $31 million in
prize-money to be competed for by some of the best horses from the US,
Europe and the rest of the world.
The action will be aired live on Sky Sports Racing, starting with
Future Stars Friday, before Championship Saturday, which is headlined by
the Breeders' Cup Classic.
Keeneland track guide
Read about the famous Kentucky
racecourse, which will stage the Breeders' Cup for a second time in
2020.
For those who don’t know, Keeneland is one of the most important – if
not the most important – racecourses in America. The UK equivalent is
Newmarket in that both are located in the seat of their countries’
breeding industries and have an “HQ” feel.
Keeneland hosted the 2015 Breeders’ Cup, a wildly successful event,
famous for American Pharoah’s Grand Slam. They are hosting the BC again
this year, without fans, and will host again in 2022. The 2022 Cup at
Keeneland is an event international fans should really consider
targeting for a visit – it’s a special place and are of the country that
should be on the bucket list of any racing fan with even a remote
interest in American racing.
The advantage of an inside draw is real but don’t discount
turf runners drawn to the far outside. It’s not that it’s an advantage;
it’s just that the market overestimates the disadvantage.
Running Styles - Dirt
In dirt races, as you would guess, speed is incredibly important. If
you could know who would make the early lead in aggregate in dirt races
at Keeneland (and this is typical for dirt races) you could have the
winner around more than 25 percent of the time, and it’s probably closer
to 30 percent.
If generally speaking you’re going to be more than a few lengths back early on ,You might as well rip up the paper and move on to the next race.
Running Styles - Turf
As one would expect, early speed is not the same type of advantage in
turf races. Even in the sprints the early leaders win less than 20
percent of the time.
Horses on the Keeneland turf at virtually all distances have an advantage when they have the best late pace figures –
this is logical certainly, but a look through the numbers really makes
late pace look important at Keeneland. Going hand in hand with this
notion, early speed in turf routes at Keeneland is simply not as beneficial as at other tracks.
(Selections will be posted later in the week )
