The 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic will be run on Saturday, November 3, 2012, with a post time of approximately 7 PM Eastern Time, at beautiful Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, and features a staggering purse of five million dollars. The 2012 renewal will be the 29th running of a race that has come to be regarded as the premier 3-years-old and up horse race on dirt in the world. Only the Dubai World Cup has a larger purse than the Classic.
29 years is a very short history for a race that is as prestigious as the Classic, especially when you consider that each of the Triple Crown races (The Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes) are well over 100 years old. Because of the success of the Classic in such a short period of time, it has surpassed many races that have been around much longer in importance and quality. The Jockey Club Gold Cup, for instance, has been around since the days of Man o’ War and used to be one of the end-of-the-year races that would decide Horse of the Year, but now it serves as one of the final prep races to get into the Classic; a win in the Gold Cup gets your horse into the Classic. A five million dollar purse and Horse of the Year to the winner (most of the time, though not always) will do that, and the only reason that the three Triple Crown races are a bigger deal than the Classic is because, very simply, the Triple Crown is the most important thing in all of thoroughbred racing, the only thing that even non-racing fans know about and will tune in to watch if there is a chance it will happen. But that hasn’t happened since 1978, and at that time the Breeders Cup didn’t even exist. Since then, however, the Breeders’ Cup has become a major force in the sport, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic has become the biggest race, with the exception of the years in which the Belmont Stakes had a Triple Crown winner at stake (2004 and Smarty Jones would be a great example; the ratings for that race far surpassed the Classic that year).
The introduction of synthetic racing surfaces to horse racing has added a new wrinkle to the Breeders’ Cup when it is held at a track that features it. Of course, handicappers must consider how a horse has fared on a fast, good, sloppy, or muddy track, but what happens when a horse comes into the Classic that has never run on synthetic surfaces before? That happened in 2008 with Curlin, and he finished third. The uncertainty that synthetic turf brings to the table is just another reason why the Breeders’ Cup Classic is one of the most exciting races you will get to watch, year after year, and it will continue to be for a long, long time.
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