You're forgetting that Holy Bull wasn't nominated and for that reason he skipped the BC as both a 2YO and 3YO. In fact, he concluded his 2YO season in one of the Calder Stakes, the In Reality.

Settled? I'm still waiting to measure exactly what the impact of three new Friday races this year had on Saturday.

See the fields? I posted the fields for 2007, above. Waiting on more than one comment, and I would seriously like to hear yours.

What horses out of the below five races do you think left the Saturday races for Friday (they had to be eligible for Saturday), and what race did they end up in on Friday, instead?

F & M turf - 12 entries - 14 allowed
Distaff - 12 entries - 14 allowed
Sprint - 11 entries - 14 allowed
Turf - 8 entries - 14 allowed
Classic - 9 entries - 14 allowed

That's right. I had forgotten about that. I still wonder though if maybe a little more consideration would have been given to it at the end of his 3yo season, seeing how good he had become. I think that had he gone as a 2yo, he would have still been second choice to Dehere and possibly even third choice. I don't know how much the purse was for the In Reality was back then (I believe it's $400k now) but the odds were much more in his favor to collect that winning check than if he had gone to the Juvenile. As a 3yo, he would have been the overwhelming favorite and for a much bigger purse had he gone to the Classic so I'm not sure if his not being nominated was the sole reason or if the fact that I don't think Croll ever felt that 10f was his best distance PLUS they would have had to pay to do it, is what kept him out.

It was actually a $400K race back then.

He wasn't going in any BC as a 3YO. He ended his year with the Woodward and didn't even go to the Jockey Club Gold Cup ( which was an even weaker field that the Woodward ). If he wanted to run in a big Mile race he could have gone in the, then, NYRA Mile.....where at least that day he would have had trouble beating Cigar.

IMO the Juvy filly turf race will have no impact on any field size. All 4 2 year old races will oversubscribe with maiden breakers and NW1 allowance horses. You can make the argument that they already "experimented" with the Juvy Filly turf race in 07. It was the 6th race at Monmouth on BC Friday. The only difference is that the purse was $250K this year and next year it will be $1 million and have the title "world championship" next to it. The only possible difference field might be another shipper or 2 from Europe and a long shot in the 2 year old filly dirt race might take a shot 1st time turf because of the "world championship" title.

I don't understand people that DEFEND the addition of these races by saying, "It won't take horses away from the other races because there will be plenty of low-level allowance horses to fill all the races." Great.
Either it will take horses away from the other races, or it will be filled with horses that don't belong in the Breeders' Cup. I think it is a pretty bad deal either way, and I think the worst news is, that it will do both.

The problem with the juvy turf race for fillies isn't that it might not fill. It probably will. The point is that if the race didn't exist, the top-notch 2yo turf fillies would be forced into one of the other two races (juvy fillies or juvy turf) or skip the BC altogether. By adding more races, I think it is inarguable that - even if they do have full fields - it probably means less interesting races.

Yes.
Of course, in my opinion, every single race in the Breeders' Cup is a mistake. But the more they add, the worse it gets.

This is a pretty good point that seems to have somehow been overlooked in this strange thread.
The addition of 3 new races this year ALREADY affected the field size of the existing races. Some people in this thread seem to be saying that something won't happen....that has already happened.
It seems odd to me.

If you guys keep saying that it won't make it true. I'm yet to hear a good example of a horse that would have run on Saturday if there were no Friday races and La Traviata is the only one that I can think of. There is no way they would have run Dream Rush at 6 furlongs against the boys. The Cigar Mile was hurt far more by the Friday races losing both Corinthian and Discreet Cat than any of the Saturday races were hurt. The only even possible I can think of is Xchanger who surely would have gone in the Jerome long before the Classic if the DC Dirt Mile didn't exist.

let me re-word that question
have any races been removed from the card? any had trouble filling? any reduced in status after gaining a graded rating?

as for the bc and the races leading up to it, you see the same thing in the spring classics. every three year old race is a derby prep, and every race after the belmont is a prep for the bc. i don't agree with it...but then, you have people who say any race other than the tc races shouldn't be a grade one. can't have it both ways. if each race should stand on its own merits, you can't then say it should have a reduced standing.

the worst thing about the bc is the fact they named it the 'world championships'. it's not that at all.

Because of the BC initiative for a "marathon" division this is the perfect year to return the Jockey Club Gold Cup to 16F, as it used to be. I surmise this move could very well place the JCGC back to elite status. Group Plan was the last to win at that distance, 1975 in 3:23.20. Trained by The Chief.

Among many notables to win the JCGC at that distance, 1921 - 1975, was Kelso, winning a mind boggling 5 in a row from 1960-1964. He set the race record in 1964 at 3:19.20... Forego won in 1974 in 3:21.20.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jockey_Club_Gold_Cup

From Friday, the following might have run on Saturday: Corinthian, Discreet Cat, Wanderin Boy, Lewis Michael, Gottcha Gold, Dream Rush, The Leopard and La Traviata. Many of these could have certainly changed the dynamics of the races they would have run in.

That strikes me as a strange sentence. You say that you have yet to hear a good example.....and then you name one.
It is also one (of the several) that have already been named on this thread (see response #81), so if you haven't seen an example, you simply haven't been reading very carefully.

Give me a break. Just because something was introduced, and never removed, does NOT mean it must be a good thing. I'm sure we can all think of about 1 billion things in the world that have been introduced and not removed. By your logic those are all good ideas, because if they weren't....somebody would have removed them!
A thing's mere existence does not prove the worthiness of that existence.

what i was asking about was whether any race in the bc card ever was a failure, or removed after being added. that would indicate that they have made errors and corrected them. what races are a failure on the bc card, but remain?

The three horses named were La Traviata, Dream Rush, and Diamond Stripes.

Diamond Stripes ran in the Classic, I don't see why his name was brought up at all.

La Traviata, a 3-year-old filly with only 3 starts under her belt, who didn't even start racing until June, was supposed to run in October against the all-ages boys in the Sprint? A three-start filly, with one Grade 3 race under her belt, against older males in a Grade 1 race? She was considered for the Sprint, but was indeed pulled in favor of Friday. Thank goodness. Did that defection ruin the running of the Sprint? Doubtful.

Dream Rush, top of her division and also a three-year-old, was also supposed to run against the all-ages boys in the Sprint? Her owners never considered it. She wouldn't have been there at all if Friday's races didn't exist.

I think it a far better race, to see two promising three-year-old filly sprinters meet and run against each other, than to see them crushed by running against older males. Enough that a three-year-old is thrown in a race open to olders of her sex.

Not "good examples of how Friday race availability has ruined the Saturday entries and diluted the quality of the racing" in my book.

Okay guys. If the Breeders Cup could be restarted from scratch, what races would you include on the card?

I would have no 2-year-old races. Let them be "champions" starting in the fall of their three-year-old year, after they've proven themselves and have run for at least a year. Give the young turks something to shoot for, on the track and someday in the shed.

Good grief. Has anybody seen the DRF? Mike Welsch uses the term "marathon" twice in two headlines.

Please, somebody tell me this isn't a concious "editorial decision" from above to use these terms, made solely to support the Breeders Cup folks that think 1 1/2 miles is a "marathon"?

Maybe they can change the name of the Belmont Stakes to the Belmont Marathon.

I was perusing Equidaily and came across this post from 2003. Reading it now it looks like it could've been written around the time this thread was started.

http://www.equidaily.com/bestbet/fans/031112.html

Enjoy!

Keeneland added a new Stake to their spring meet for the BC Marathon:

http://racing.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=43097