"The bottom line appeared clear to many. American racing had to get off the legal needle. Therefore there was a great deal of consternation when the AGSC rescinded it's lasix ban last week."

"Breeders’ Cup remains committed to a plan to ban the use of raceday furosemide in the five races restricted to 2-year-olds that are scheduled for its 2012 event at Santa Anita Park, a spokesperson for the organization said Monday, three days after a similar policy was abandoned by the American Graded Stakes Committee."

"The Breeders' Cup has become a monster devouring the traditions of a unique sport."

"As time goes on we will get horses competing from abroad. British horses can still go for the Breeders Cup if they want to but the races we want are on dirt there, so why fly turf horses all the way over to America? To win at Ascot on Champions Day, value-wise, will be much more."

"The continued down-sizing was expected, as 2011 marks the sixth straight season foal numbers will fall. The 2005 foal crop was up 1% compared to 2004, reaching 38,361, but numbers have dropped each year since, down to a projected 27,000 live foals for this year. The Jockey Club expects the numbers to continue to fall in 2012.... In figures released Thursday, the Jockey Club said 23,558 live foals had been reported through September 7. That figure, believed to be about 85% complete as more reports are expected, is down 13.8% compared with last year at this time when 27,233 reports had been received."

"Hayward said he didn’t want to reveal details of NYRA’s bid, but he did say the association is committed to making capital improvements at Belmont, something that will be much easier for NYRA when the under-construction video lottery terminal casino at Aqueduct begins operating."

"If it was at Belmont, purses would have to be cut from $26 million to $15 million to break even."

"Repole’s Breeders’ Cup (I bet he loves the sound of that) could keep some New York horsemen home. It might keep Pletcher home. 'I’m all for it if he wants to put up the money,' Pletcher said and he was serious. 'If there was an equivalent race, why would I ship to California if I had an equivalent option in New York. I am all for having (Breeders’ Cup) in California, just not every year ...'"

"The way we campaign horses has changed. We don’t run as frequently as we used to. The ‘bounce factor’ is a real deal. If you ignore it you get your butt kicked. I actually think that’s been one of the biggest reasons in the downward spiral in starts per year for a horse. We simply give them more time between races. Every time we lead them over there these days we expect an ‘A’ effort. And then when they give you an ‘A’ effort they need more time to recover. It’s as simple as that. I mean, with a lot of trainers, if their horse is not 4-to-1 or less, they’re out. They don’t run."

"If I have top horses like Mo, Thirsty, and Overdriven running next year, I am going to have to rethink my decision to go over there. It's just not fair. They don't hold the Super Bowl at the same venue three out of five years. It's a joke. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the top East Coast trainers and owners didn't go out there next year. Actually, if NYRA decided to run some big races on the same weekend as the Breeders' Cup, I would encourage other horsmen to stay close to home." Also: "As an owner who regularly spends up to $4 million on horses per year, what am I supposed to do if one of these horses bleeds after his first start ... ?"

"After a quarter of a century, it might have been assumed that the Breeders' Cup was the finished article but this is evidence that it is still growing and developing. If so, then the sooner Ascot can shift its new Champions Day to a permanent slot in mid-September, the more chance it will stand of making it a success."

"This is no doubt the beginning of the end of Lasix use in U.S. racing. Since serious talk of banning the drug and getting in line with the rest of the world's medication policies began it was apparent that a lot of people were waiting for someone or some organization to lead the charge and take the first step, a first step that would no doubt lead to a domino effect. It will now be a lot easier for others to follow the Breeders' Cup's lead and also ban race-day medications. At least in top level races, these drugs are about to be a thing of the past."

"In addition to invigorating efforts for an industry-wide ban, the Breeders’ Cup decision may sap momentum for a compromise that is being sought by horsemen to allow raceday use of the drug but restrict the injections to state veterinarians rather than private veterinarians and ban the use of so-called adjunct bleeder medications, which are legal in only three states. Horsemen were hopeful that the compromise could be reached as part of the larger discussion being led by the medication consortium, but the prospect of more aggressive efforts to ban the drug outright on raceday will probably move compromise talks to the backburner."

"In a filing, Veitch argues that the commission has an 'unconstitutional vendetta' against him because of disagreements with the commission's executive director, Lisa Underwood, over penalties given by the stewards."

"The Breeders’ Cup operates the sport’s year-end championship event and has the opportunity to build something much bigger, whether it’s a year-round “major league” or a series of races leading up to its two-day championships."

"The news that John Velazquez was 'fined' $10,000 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission this week for the events surrounding the dreary performance of Life at Ten in the 2010 running of the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic was enough to set a sane man's teeth on edge. How many ways can you spell 'scapegoat'?"

"... the Kentucky Derby, which symbolically reflects the country's pastoral heritage, may be closer to the Super Bowl than any other single sporting event. But the Breeders' Cup, which is often described as the Super Bowl of horse racing, isn't much like the Super Bowl at all. Not really. Yes, the Breeders' Cup has its parties and celebrities. But in the end, the Breeders' Cup is about sports, about racing and competition and championships. Quite simply, the Breeders' Cup represents a purity of competition that the Super Bowl never has achieved and never will."

"When the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission meets Feb. 9, members will be given an update on the investigation into Life At Ten’s participation in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic (gr. I). Lisa Underwood, executive director of the KHRC, said Feb. 1 that the investigation is continuing and that the full final report, along with any recommendations for the commission to consider, will not be presented next week."

"Life At Ten, the Todd Pletcher trainee who ran eleventh, and last, in the Nov. 4 Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic at Churchill Downs, has returned from a layoff and is gearing up for a 2011 campaign. Expected to start sometime this March with the April 15 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park serving as a potential goal, she remains at the center of a lengthy investigation by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission."

Freddie Head pays tribute to the champion mare.

"Miesque, the first two-time winner of a Breeders’ Cup race and the dam of major sire Kingmambo, was euthanized on Thursday at age 27 as a pensioned broodmare due to the infirmities of old age at the Oak Tree Division of Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky."

"Though the commission staff, under direction of its director of security, is conducting the bulk of the investigation, the Transportation Department official was brought in to handle the role of the stewards in the Life At Ten matter, according to Lisa Underwood, executive director of the KHRC."

"We did decide since there were some employees of the commission who were involved that it would be appropriate to have an outside party be part of the interviewing, … to have some independent review for certain aspects of it." Noted: KHRC has conducted 90 interviews.

"Where the championships themselves were averaging less than US$15 million from all sources prior to 2006, they’re now, depending on the particular year, somewhere between US$25 and US$30 million. We’ve been able to grow our revenues almost by 100 per cent and that’s primarily how we fund our purses every year."

"During the commission’s regular monthly meeting, Beck reiterated previous statements from commission staff that no timetable had been placed on completion of the investigation into the poor performance by Life At Ten in the Breeders’ Cup. Beck, obviously bristling at criticism directed at the commission following the Breeders' Cup, opined that 'some will think it will be too fast and some will think it will be too slow' in reference to the investigation."

"But if the KHRC fails to mete out justice in this case, Breeders’ Cup Ltd. must put a framework in place for acting unilaterally, or in concert, changing protocols so that it shares responsibility should an adjudication process become necessary."

"The failure of Breeders' Cup Ltd. and the Japan Racing Association to attract more than one foreign runner to the world's two richest dirt races provides some insight as to what the world at large thinks of dirt racing. America's surface of choice appears to be out of favor in most countries.... In this day and age, the quality of a championship race is determined in no small part by the number of top class foreign entries it contains."

"Lisa Underwood, the KRC executive director, said Nov. 30 that the regulatory body’s staff is undertaking an extensive investigation into the Life At Ten incident and that all of the interviews would be completed in time for a report to the commission at its Dec. 15 meeting.... Noting that she and her staff are devoting a large part of their daily schedules to the Life At Ten probe, Underwood said a large number of people are scheduled to be interviewed as part of the process."

“I don’t understand why it is two weeks out and there is still no resolution,” said Vance from his home base in Oklahoma. “It allows for more speculation. From our vantage point, I would like to see an acknowledgement.”

"Get tough, Greg. Take a page out of the Goodell playbook. Now is not the time to tuck your head in the sand like so many racing leaders before you. Make your mark. Be firm. Be historic."

“It turned out to be the perfect storm, and, unfortunately, the horse and the bettors were the ones hit with the lightning bolts."

"Coverage of The Breeders Cup averaged a 1.08 U.S. rating across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC last weekend, up 74% from 2009. In particular, ESPN drew a 2.5 U.S. rating and 4.095 million viewers for The Breeders' Cup Classic last Saturday evening. The 2.5 U.S. rating equals a cable rating of 2.9, the highest cable rating ever for the Breeders Cup."

“I’ve been doing this for more than 40 years, and I can tell you that [Zenyatta’s] performance was the greatest that I have ever seen by a horse that did not win the race,” he told the host. “Some people will say that she shouldn’t be named Horse of the Year because she didn’t win. I would argue that her performance in defeat was much better than her winning effort a year earlier and should guarantee that she is named Horse of the Year.”

"Santa Anita's decision to return to dirt means the only cheering from outside the States is from officials at Ascot and Longchamp. They have to compete with the Breeders' Cup to attract top-class runners for the respectively revamped Champions Day and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe meetings.... The American Thoroughbred appears to be in decline -- and while everyone in their industry fears it, they would sooner bury their heads in the dirt than do something more sensible about it."

"Night was stealing across the huddled knolls and woodland beyond, enveloping ochre, gold and russet in the same gloom. We knew, now, that she was not invincible. She was better than that."

"Though Avioli says there's really nothing off the table, the series has no plans to return to a track with synthetic surfaces. While the 2008 and 2009 events were catastrophe-free on the synthetic surface at Santa Anita, it also scared away some American trainers who aren't exactly fans of the mixture of sand and rubber."

"Betfair handled $25-million on Breeders’ Cup races through its exchange last year and only $741,000 through the common pool.... Hong Kong is taking six Breeders’ Cup races this year on Saturday, November 6, which is early Sunday morning, November 7, for Hong Kong residents. Hong Kong handled $2.9-million on four Breeders’ Cup races last year."

"That's the intangible Zenyatta brings to the table, and it's bigger than Beyer figures, company lines and everything else her critics might judge her on. She just wins. You cannot argue with 19 straight, no matter how weak some of the fields she has been facing might have been. It is an historic accomplishment, something no other top-level horse has done. Corny as it might sound, she has a big heart, refuses to lose, knows where the wire is, whatever. In the Classic, that's what is going to get her to the finish line first."

"I think (the dirt surface) had a great influence on (the pre-entries)," said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who pre-entered 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird in the Dirt Mile. "I think the general consensus in talking to other trainers is it's what we all want. We're in the mecca of racing right here in Kentucky. It appeals to both coasts and of course the Europeans. I think being on a natural surface is huge, huge."

"Unbeaten in 19 races, Zenyatta has established a winning streak unrivaled in American racing. With a victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic, she will cement her legacy as the greatest female thoroughbred ever."

"Efforts to recruit the best horses in the world to run in Europe and the Far East are set to intensify this week when two of the highest-profile racing bodies embark on an annual drive to entice the equine stars to race for prestige and big money in foreign countries."

"Mid October was very much Plan B, and while there are over-riding concerns over whether or not the top horses will run at Ascot in preference to going to France or America, we hope to play our part. Next year, the Breeders' Cup will be run on a conventional dirt surface and with over £1million in prize money, we hope most of the good 10-furlong horses will stay at home and run at Ascot."

Mike Watchmaker: "Look, I have been a big proponent of the European shippers this year and have been since early last July when Chinchon came over from France with mediocre running lines and dominated the United Nations. I have been saying here and in other places that the Europeans will be formidable in the Breeders' Cup. I still believe that, because considering some of the European names that have been bandied about in a Breeders' Cup context, the Europeans who have been so successful here so far this year aren't even close to being as good as what we might see in Louisville. Yet even if I believe this, I also believe that after really analyzing what happened Saturday, the state of the North American sport isn't nearly as hopeless and pathetic as some would have you think."

"Naysayers will point out Zenyatta’s perfect 19-for-19 record, but without disparaging what she has accomplished, it must be pointed out that Zenyatta has been dodging top-quality competition for most of her career. Had she been challenging and beating the best of the breed the way Goldikova has done since the middle of her 3-year-old campaign, Zenyatta backers might have an argument. But her stay-at-home Southern California campaigns at the ages of 4, 5, and 6 against a modest bunch of fillies and mares paints her as a provincial champion with only a single world-class performance to her credit, that when beating one of the weaker Breeders’ Cup Classic fields last year in her backyard at Santa Anita."

Zenyatta 4-1 Classic, Blind Luck 2-1 Distaff, Uncle Mo 5-4 Juvenile.

"The official Breeders’ Cup apps will feature live video coverage of all 14 races from this year’s event, scheduled for Nov. 5 to 6, along with on-demand video for every Breeders’ Cup World Championships race dating to 1984. The apps also will provide news, results and statistics, social-media elements, trivia games, a wagering calculator and a locator for finding race simulcast outlets."

"Anyway, those alarmed by the way things are going will permit themselves a certain bleak satisfaction should the Dewhurst live up to its billing, because it couldn't happen another time. It may yet be, of course, that some apparent no-hoper barges through and beats them all. And that, if we're not careful, is just the kind of disobliging behaviour that might some day drive these marketing cadets away from thoroughbreds -- and then where would we find the dimensionless froth to tempt all these lovely young ABC1s?"

"With the revisionist version of Secretariat's life story in theaters near you, the Breeders' Cup, still a month away, promises the most compelling drama of the 2010 racing season and one that needs no hype, contrived promotion or departure from reality. Hold your breath. This could be as good as it gets during a day at the races." Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX7AZlVVBb4

"Europeans would have loved to return every year to Santa Anita, with a synthetic surface, given our fantastic record over the last couple of years. It is always wonderful for horsemen to go to a warm climate and our horses seem to thrive out there as well. It is disappointing, from a European perspective, to be returning to a dirt surface but we still love Santa Anita and I’m sure we’ll be keen to return there in future years. Remember what a fantastic record we have on their turf course as well!"

"Officials at the Japan Racing Association are hoping that the attraction of a huge financial reward for finishing in the first three in the Mile Championship on November 21, balanced against a significant supplementary cost to enter the Breeders' Cup Mile, will sway Canford Cliffs's owners, who include BHA chairman Paul Roy's wife Susan."

"After all, Workforce has had only four races this season, and five in total. Rested after that mystifying failure at Ascot in July, the Derby winner had been brought expertly back to the boil for the Arc by Sir Michael Stoute and it would seem perverse to board up the storefront after a fresh delivery of stock. Louisville in November, moreover, does not menace a European thoroughbred with the sort of abrupt change in climate experienced at Santa Anita over the past two years. And no rival, either side of the Atlantic, volunteers himself as particularly competent to thwart Workforce should he show up in the same form as at Longchamp. Pending a decision on his participation, bookmakers are already quoting him between 2-1 and 5-2."

"A growing importance of horse racing in other parts of the world as opposed to the growth of the sport here is what most likely will constitute 'The New Normal.' But the Breeders’ Cup remains clearly the standard which all nations emulate."

"It will be staged at Ascot on 15 Oct 2011, with a six-race card that officials hope can be built into an extravaganza to rival the Breeders' Cup and Arc day." It's about "branding," of course. Also includes British Champion Series, a familiar sounding faux scheme for "newcomers."

"SocialSphere, Inc., a data-based strategist employed by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), has its own set of Potemkin numbers. The company contends that 50 million of the proletariat connects with the Sport of Kings in one way or another and that seven million people went to the racetracks and bet during the last 30 days." [Re: marketing, comparison to.]

"Though so far received as little more than a bureaucratic footnote, there is a case for wondering whether the latest such initiative will prove one of the most significant in the history of the international sport. For with a single stroke, the Breeders' Cup has dismantled the barriers that have historically confined European participation to a minority blessed by unusual luck or resources."

"We’ve got a facility Breeders’ Cup would love. It’s got acres and acres of skyboxes and luxury suites and a big director’s room. It would be easy to adapt this place to tents and things like that. We’ve got more hotel rooms around here than perhaps any track in the country." Also: "As long as the statistics are showing how much safer it is than dirt, we’d be foolish to move to dirt."

"In an attempt to create a single climax to the British flat-racing season, Racing for Change has drawn up a blueprint for a season finale, which would be branded as a European Championship and could be staged at Ascot, one of the U.K.'s biggest and most prestigious racetracks, in October."

"Moss said the most likely spot for Zenyatta is the newly named Zenyatta Stakes on Oct. 2 at Hollywood Park. That would end any thoughts of having her run in the Beldame Stakes at Belmont on Oct. 2." All in on the Breeders' Cup. Risky. (And dull.)

MID tells BH that Oak Tree can't be staged this year because the track needs a new surface. Also: "[Chillingworth] said company representatives have made it clear they would also want to take any future Breeders' Cup dates. 'We would run the [Oak Tree] meet and they would run the Breeders' Cup,' Chillingworth said."

"The devil is in the detail, and that is what will be ironed out. The decision could make Santa Anita the home of the event, period. More likely, it will become the host site, have the Breeders' Cup most of the years and be the dominant player, with some sort of regular or occasional rotation for other sites, usually Churchill Downs." (See also: http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/the-case-for-a-cali-cup/ And a counter-argument: http://racing.courier-journal.com/2010/04/note-to-breeders-cup-dont-have-any.html Another: http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2010/04/09/sports/horseracing/doc4bbebfc63e5a5633368020.txt)

"The organization is set on determining a long-term schedule despite the uncertainty surrounding the racing industry, both on the national stage, where handle and bloodstock prices have plummeted over the last two years, and on the circuits Breeders' Cup typically targets. As a result, Breeders' Cup has limited options, and none appears ideal."

"I knew that American horse racing had to work in a complex, often out-dated, multi-jurisdictional legal environment. I knew there were a number of different industry bodies, with seemingly overlapping remits. I knew there were many tracks, quite a few of which ran low-quality, sub-scale race days in front of very few fans. But what I didn’t appreciate when I started this was the sheer magnitude of these factors. So, put simply, the sport is even more fragmented than I expected." (Part 1: http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/national-news/2010/March/16/QA-with-Breeders-Cup-consultant-William-Field.aspx)

"Dubai remains ideally placed as the potential nexus of a maturing international sport. Certainly there will be a far greater geographical spread of competition than at the Breeders' Cup, which bills itself as the World Thoroughbred Championships.... [At Santa Anita] there is now distressing talk of the synthetic track being restored to dirt. One conceivable reward for this shocking regression might be a permanent contract to stage the Breeders' Cup. If that were so, the painful but necessary catharsis currently underway in the American sport would be disastrously reversed by its reactionaries. And their inevitable isolation would provide an obvious cue for Meydan."

"The next step has always been obvious: a festival meeting at the other end of the season. The question is whether the Sheikh still has the energy, the clout and, for that matter, the money to make it happen. Were it not for the unfortunate matter of the entire country nearly going bust a few months ago, the timing would seem ideal. The Breeders' Cup awarded itself the subtitle 'World Thoroughbred Championships' several years ago, but it will be back on dirt this year after two years on an artificial surface. Now that even Santa Anita is apparently ready to reinstall dirt too, American racing seems more inward-looking than ever."

Collated ante-post odds from UK/Ireland betting shops (via @robinhowlett).

"The 33-horse international contingent ... was greatly needed to help fill the 14-race program this year."

"Next month's Breeders' Cup is in the Californian town of Arcadia, but it might have been hell for Sea The Stars, whose six-month pageant through European racing required no further embellishment ..."

"Here, as all of racing knows, is the distillation of everything breeders and owners and trainers have searched for over centuries."

"It's a hard saying but the reality is evident: Curlin was beaten by two of the best horses in Europe, not by a couple of carpetbaggers who got lucky. Curlin met his match, fair and square, and did not quite make it. Remember this: Raven's Pass had to break the track record to run Curlin down and win the Classic."

The Breeders' Cup spin is that Friday was a day of record handle and that fans love the new format. But Steve Crist looks closer and finds that a year-to-year race-to-race handle comparison tells a very different story. Handle on the filly and mare races was down 32%, with the Distaff alone falling off by $3.2 million.

"Though it has from the beginning been a showcase for the best and the fastest horses of each racing season since 1984, the first quarter-century of the Breeders' Cup has been marked by a good deal of remarkable human accomplishment."

"As the world turns on every verbal barb between the connections of Big Brown and Curlin, almost invisibly out west there's a filly barnstorming her way toward the game's highest honor rolls."

"Racing isn't dying. Far from it. Follow the money, and you'll find the game."

Beyer speed figures for Breeders' Cup fields