The hot favourite for the Classic on Saturday bids to join the meeting’s 39-year-old honour roll of all-time greats
It is difficult to describe the uniqueness of the Breeders’ Cup to anyone who has not experienced it first hand. European racegoers are lucky to see the horses for five minutes in the parade ring before a race. At the Cup, all but a few of the runners in the 14 Grade One event exercise on the track each morning of the week before the meet, decked out in their big-race saddle cloths for easy identification and under the watchful gaze of … well, anyone and everyone who is minded to turn up.
Every horse with the famous purple saddle cloth is an elite racehorse, one of a tiny handful from the six-figure global foal crop good enough to run at the Cup, and there are around 200 stabled at Keeneland in Kentucky this week. But there is still an irresistible buzz that sweeps around the track when a real monster of the dirt heads out to breeze in the early light, and the excitement will have been at fever pitch this week as Flightline prepares to defend his unbeaten record in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.
