Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin DEL MAR, CA - OCTOBER 29: Fierceness on track in preparation for Breeders Cup Classic and Juvenile at Del Mar, California. (Photo by Horsephotos/Getty Images) Today’s gladiators are assembling on the sand, so let us first note the obvious: The super-august $7-million Breeders’ Cup Classic is, in the hivemind of the Del Mar oddsmakers anyway, thought to hold a close-run rather than a runaway victor. There is no Secretariat on the (see-able) horizon, blazing out forty lengths to the wire.
A brain-teaser way to put that would be to say that each of the two narrow morning-line top favorites are simultaneous underdogs to the other. Because! Their weaknesses match up in kismet-like perfection! So, whose weakness is worse? Not even the godly Irishman Aidan O’Brien nor his American combatant Pletcher know that. Rock-steady strongman City of Troy bears his glaring, now-famous disadvantage related to the surface.
Despite his last two (consecutive) wins, Fierceness is still working out from under his still-amazing self-induced cloud of iffy-ness. Point is, players are amusingly adrift on this big behemoth of a race. Because race day is race day, different thoughts have to happen to wrap the player’s mind, not to mention the wallet, around the possibilities.
Morning line price ain’t worth a darn on either of the top two champions, but whether you’re basking in the sun “where the turf meets the surf” or holed up in the c.