Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Forever Young Loves The Length: Mystik Dan #3, ridden by jockey Brian J. Hernandez Jr. (R), crosses the finish line ahead of Sierra Leone #2, ridden by jockey Tyler Gaffalione and Forever Young, far left, ridden by jockey Ryusei Sakai to win the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 04.
(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) It’s axiomatic that Breeders’ Cup race week brings the best global equine athletes and their two-legged connections to the United States for what, over the last 41 years of it, has become the World Series of equine sports. The thirteen races — run this year at Del Mar over November 1-2, five races this Friday and nine on Saturday — will carry a bracing $30 million in purses, $7 million of which will be doled out to the winners in Saturday afternoon’s Classic. This may all seem SOP, standard operating procedure, but it remains extraordinary, in flat racing on dirt or turf, that the Cup’s quality of athlete and the array of events in which those athletic talents can be tested is unmatched, globally.
No horse-racing country can stage the Breeders’ because nobody else save the USA has that vast Kentucky-bred depth of bench. That depth of bench is the main reason that Thoroughbred horsemen from around the world are so keen to come Stateside to test their luck come November. The post position draw for this year’s Classic will take .
