Stevens fined $500 for skipping race after win

The Breeders’ Cup began Friday with four races, culminating with the 6- year-old battle-tested mare Beholder handing the brilliant 3-year-old filly Songbird her first defeat in a thrilling stretch duel in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

Tepin ran at Keeneland the same days in Grade 1 races for fillies and mares, taking the Jenny Wiley and having her eight-race win streak snapped with a second to front-running Photo Call in the First Lady. “And then you have feeding programs, vet bills and you also have to break them where they’ll learn to take a saddle and bridle and have a rider on their back”. It might have made a difference that Stevens dropped his whip in the stretch.

It was an 11th Breeders Cup victory for O’Brien who was securing a 22nd Group-Grade 1 success of 2016.

Oscar Performance paid $11.20, $6.40 and $3.40 for his third straight victory. Homers have won four of the eight Classics run at Santa Anita, and that includes the 2014 body-check victor Bayern who hadn’t raced on the Santa Anita sand since the previous February.

Total betting on the 13 races, including all horizontal bets ending in a Breeders’ Cup race, was $128.1 million, compared with $125.9 million bet previous year, when the event was held at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., according to the charts. “Something happened, I don’t know what it was, but he came back from training and he was just focused”.

Not This Time (7-2), Classic Empire (4-1), and Gormley (5-1) are the three betting favorites.

Smith is the leader in victories and money won among jockeys in Breeders’ Cup history.

Drefong and Masochistic battled for the lead in the 6-furlong event through fast fractions of 21.49 and 44.03 and kept going.

Second choice Arrogate paid $5.40, $2.80, and $2.60.

Tepin, who drew post-position 8 for the Mile, lost for the first time in nine races when a late-running second to front-running Photo Call in Keeneland’s Grade 1 First Lady on October 8.

The 5-year-old mare, who had been reluctant to enter the starting gate, was pulled up at the top of the stretch by jockey Pablo Falero, had her leg splinted and was then taken to the track’s equine hospital for further evaluation. Sherman thinks he’s a much different horse than the one that finished third in the 2014 Classic. Favorite Limato finished sixth.

The time was 1:34.01 for the mile. The 5-year-old’s 2016 resume is sparkling: six races, six victories. Found and Highland Reel finished 1-2 in the Arc de Triomphe in France in October. Today, the action concludes with nine more races, led by the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, the richest horse race in North America.

The 4-year-old ridgling went on to post a dominating win in the Whitney and suffered a narrow loss in the Woodward while receiving an overly confident ride that backfired, but the son of Tapit didn’t come close to duplicating his sensational Met Mile score in the subsequent starts at Saratoga.

But Queen’s Trust rallied on the outside to win by a nose in a time of 1:57.75.

Melatonin (12-1) trainer David Hofmans is looking to duplicate an upset win in the Classic which he accomplished 20 years ago at Woodbine in Toronto. Now Maliki’s mother, Dacia Cheyney, is trying to reach out and find the family in any way she can.

Casse did celebrate his third career Breeders’ Cup win and has the first early favourite for next year’s Kentucky Derby after Classic Empire won the $2-million Juvenile.

The win was Smith’s third of this Breeders’ Cup and record 25th overall. Smith won the Dirt Mile with Tamarkuz on Friday. The colt won by 13 lengths, completing the mile-and-a-quarter in under 2 minutes. Lady Shipman was second in last year’s Turf Sprint by a mere neck to victorious Mongolian Saturday and Green Mask was another half-length back in third. Tara’s Tango was fourth.

While California Chrome and Arrogate are unmistakably the stars of the Classic show, there is one other horse with a freak factor.