The 2013 Breeders’ Cup World Championships kicks off on Friday, November 1 from Santa Anita Race track in Arcadia, California. Fourteen races make up the weekend of action, with five races on Friday, and nine more on Saturday. While the Classic as the last race on Saturday is always the most anticipated race of any Breeders’ Cup, this year’s $2,000,000 Distaff, for fillies and mares aged three-years-old and up running 1 1/8 miles on the dirt just may match it. The race features a rematch between two-time winner Royal Delta, and champion three-year-old candidate Princess of Sylmar.
The five-year-old Royal Delta has all but dominated distaff racing in the US over the past couple of years, finishing no worse than second in her last 14 races on American soil, winning nine of those, including the last two BC Distaffs (previously known as the Ladies Classic). She has an overall record of 12 wins, five seconds and a third in 21 lifetime starts, and more than $4.6 million in earnings. She would be the odds-on favorite to win her third Breeders’ Cup crown – except that in her last race, the Grade I Beldame Stakes, she was beaten handily by Princess of Sylmar.
Princess of Sylmar is a three-year-old Pennsylvania-bred filly, who has won five of six this year and eight of 10 lifetime. She started her three-year-old campaign with a couple of minor stakes wins, ran second in the Grade II Gazelle, and has not lost since, reeling off four straight Grade I wins, including the Kentucky Oaks. The only filly to beat her this year is Close Hatches, who will also be going into the Distaff starting gate, along with Beholder, unbeaten in five Grade I starts at Santa Anita, and second in the Kentucky Oaks. Post time for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff is 4:35 PM PDT
The field is set for the $1 million Haskell, where Nyquist will be trying to re-stake his claim as the top three-year-old in the country.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $300,000 United Nations Stakes. Scheduled to be run at a mile and three-eighths on the turf, the Grade 1 event has drawn a field of ten colts and geldings.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes, a key prep race for the Haskell Invitational (G1). The Grade 3 event will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth and has drawn a field of seven three-year-olds.
With five grade 1 races and a grade 2, the undercard for the June 11 Belmont stakes could be the best single day of racing on the calendar outside of the Breeders’ Cup.
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