To the Breeders' Cup Championships
Curlin, Any Given Saturday, Street Sense, Hard Spun, Tiago Qualify
While older horses, Lawyer Ron and Lava Man, will also run, the Triple Crown and summer season's duels are likely to re-fire at Monmouth's Breeders' Cup show.
It's October and all eyes of the horse racing world look to the season-ending Breeders' Cup World Championships with its extended two-day slate at the end of the month at Monmouth Park, Oceanport, New Jersey. The new summer program of races called "Win and You're In" have gotten fantastic results with the likes of Curlin, Hard Spun, Any Given Saturday, Street Sense, Lawyer Ron, and Lava Man all turning in qualifying victories.
Lawyer Ron, four-year-old champion of this year's Whitney Handicap (July) and the Woodward Stakes (Sept. 1), is sure to show up again, although he missed victory by a hair to Curlin this past weekend in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Curlin, the muscular golden boy who broke Street Sense's heart in the Preakness Stakes, and battled it out with Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes, found life again in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (Sept. 30). After a well-deserved rest from that Belmont war, he finished third in the August Haskell Invitational Handicap. In the Gold Cup, Curlin stretched those golden muscles to the max again in a winning effort to the wire.
Any Given Saturday came to the 2007 races as the pretty pedigree colt. AGS has made a huge statement of late, winning the Haskell Invitational Handicap in August and the Brooklyn Handicap in September after doing an inexplicable disappearing act in the Kentucky Derby.
Everybody's favorite jockey this season, Calvin Borel, has brought his Street Sense to the brink of greatness, continuing to get his colt to compete mightily to the end of his races. Since the Preakness duel with Curlin, Street Sense has shown his moxy in victories in the Jim Dandy Stakes (July) and in the Travers Stakes (August). Most recently, he lost by a length and a quarter to Hard Spun in the Kentucky Cup Classic Stakes (Sept.).
Tiago, the upset-minded half brother to 2005 Kentucky Derby champion Giacomo, is still in the mix. He ground it out with Awesome Gem in the Goodwood Handicap Sept. 29 to stamp his ticket to the Breeders' Cup. He ran a determined third in the Belmont Stakes and won the Santa Anita Derby.
Lava Man proved older can be better this season when he triumphed in his second consecutive Santa Anita Handicap, just the third horse in history to do so. He's a California favorite.
Hard Spun, the laid back Polytrack cowboy champ who recently upset Street Sense in the Kentucky Cup Classic Stakes (Sept. 29), and who ran second and third, respectively, in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, may have an advantage on Monmouth's artificial surface.
It won't be dull in New Jersey at the end of the month.
