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Aidan O’Brien’s gallop towards an extension of his record for Group One wins in a season has slowed a little in recent weeks, but there was still a shield-beating sense of theatre about the scene as his team for the 2025 Breeders’ Cup meeting at Del Mar this weekend made its way to the track for morning exercise on Wednesday.
Unlike 2024, when City Of Troy was being aimed at the Classic, there is no obvious headliner in the O’Brien lineup, but plenty of the horses trotting past in a well-ordered single file have banked at least one Group One already this season and four are expected to set off as favourite.
Minnie Hauk, the Arc runner-up and a three-time Group One winner over the summer, heads the market for the Turf on Saturday, while Gstaad (Juvenile Turf), Precise (Juvenile Fillies’ Turf) and True Love (Juvenile Turf Sprint) are also all likely favourites for the three turf events on Friday’s card for juveniles. Other runners from the yard at single-figure odds include The Lion In Winter (Mile) and Havana Anna (Juvenile Turf Sprint), and the Ballydoyle squadron is, as so often, at the heart of the European challenge at the meeting.
O’Brien needs a single success this weekend to take sole control of the record for Breeders’ Cup with 21, one more than the late D Wayne Lukas, who died in June. It would be a remarkable achievement for an overseas trainer to sit ahead of such names as Lukas, Bob Baffert (19) and Chad Brown (19), but he is not the only European trainer with great expectations this weekend.
Francis-Henri Graffard, who has already won both the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe this year, will attempt to complete the set of the world’s most prestigious mile-and-a-half turf events with three different horses when Goliath goes to post for the Turf. And in the same race, Charlie Appleby’s popular gelding Rebel’s Romance could become only the third horse to win a Breeders’ Cup race three times, and set a new record for earnings by a European-trained horse in the process.
Andrew Balding, meanwhile, is hoping to register a win at the meeting for the first time, and has three runners over the two days. Pacific Mission is an outsider for the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf on Friday, while Jonquil (Mile) and the 4-1 shot See The Fire, in the Filly & Mare Turf, will go to post on Saturday.
“I was here [at Del Mar] for a summer when I was 20,” Balding, who is now 54, said on Wednesday. “That’s the last time I was here and nothing seems to have changed.
“It’s an important event and always has been and I remember as a kid, the first years when it was new and really exciting. Dad [the trainer, Ian] took Selkirk out to Gulfstream Park and I can remember the buzz and everything about the place, and [the champion sprinter] Lochsong in the Sprint [for her final race in 1994].”
Both Pacific Mission and See The Fire have been drawn in unfavourable wide stalls this weekend, which will give their respective jockeys, Colin Keane and Oisin Murphy, plenty of thinking to do.
“From that draw, I’ll leave it to the jockeys,” Balding said. “See The Fire needs an end-to-end gallop to aim at and it will be interesting to see her over an extra furlong on Saturday, it might make a big difference. She’s very high class on her day, the only thing is, it’s the end of a long season.”
What had promised to be one of the best ever runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Classic lost one of its stars on Wednesday when Sovereignty, the Godolphin-owned Kentucky Derby winner and the probable favourite, was ruled out by Bill Mott, his trainer, as he is suffering from an infection.
Greg Wood's Thursday tips
ShowStratford-On-Avon 12.47 Dickens 1.17 Followango 1.47 Brace For Landing 2.17 Quaviste 2.47 Range 3.17 Western Soldier 3.47 Faitique De L’Isle 4.17 Princess Of Ballea
Bath 12.55 Takeitorleaveit 1.25 Heroics 1.55 Platinum Prince 2.25 Rating 2.55 Marching Mac 3.25 Cameley Days 3.55 Roman Spring 4.25 Sub Thirteen
Newcastle 1.08 Cueros 1.38 Sir Carnegie 2.08 Fairly Fulling 2.38 Chasingouttheblues 3.08 Hostile Hotelier 3.38 Half Shot 4.08 Monte A Bord
Southwell 4.30 Big Shot Veto 5.00 Birdcall 5.30 Lightning Touch 6.00 Woodstock 6.30 Taranjerine 7.00 Covert Legend 7.30 Springbok 8.00 Imola 8.30 Spun To Gold
Chelmsford 4.45 Reader 5.15 Miss Ayala 5.45 Applesandpears 6.15 Aramis Grey (nap) 6.45 Flowstate 7.15 Juno Star (nb) 7.45 Must Believe 8.15 Wyld Bill
Prior to Sovereignty’s scratching, the field for Saturday’s showpiece had been expected to include the first three home in this year’s Kentucky Derby as well as the first three from last year’s Classic. Sierra Leone and Fierceness, the 1-2 here 12 months ago, are now vying for favouritism at around 3-1, with Japan’s Forever Young, third in that race, at 6-1 and Journalism, the runner-up in the Kentucky Derby, the first three-year-old in the betting at 7-1.
