Breeders' Cup Breakthrough

Minutes after Ethical Diamond (Awtaad) shattered the Del Mar clock in the 2025 GI Breeders' Cup Turf, on-site analysts declared it to be one of the most remarkable wins in the World Championship's 42-year history. The 5-year-old gelding had not just defied his 27-1 odds; he had completely rewritten a cross-disciplinary rulebook. Seven months later, National Hunt legend Willie Mullins is still wearing the quiet smile of a man who pulled off the ultimate heist in transitioning a maiden hurdle winner at Punchestown in February into a Breeders' Cup champion...

Donnacha O'Brien can't recall the exact details of his earliest Breeders' Cup memories, but he does have a vague recollection of parading around the racecourse sporting a cowboy hat. That presumably would have been during the 2004 World Championship meet held at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, when O'Brien was just six years old. That year, his father Aidan saddled Mile runner-up Antonius Pius (Danzig) and Turf third-placed Powerscourt (Sadler's Wells). "We've been going to the Breeders' Cup since we were literally kids," O'Brien recalled. "The whole family....

"I just watched the Breeders' Cup as a fan. Now we're here!" Jose Francisco D'Angelo was overcome with emotion as he spoke with Nick Luck on the NBC broadcast from the winner's circle at Del Mar. Some 3,500 miles away in Caracas, Venezuela, his friends and family were gathered to celebrate as Shisospicy (Mitole) claimed the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, handing D'Angelo his first victory at the World Championships. It turned out the party was just getting started. Roughly 30 minutes later, D'Angelo was back in the winner's circle...

There is a no-frills air to George Weaver, evident in everything from his worn-in boots to the strictly utilitarian office in his Palm Beach Downs barn. Weaver has little interest in shouting his success from the rooftops. He'd rather let the horses do the talking. "I feel like your horses should do the advertising for you," Weaver said. "When they win, I think it tells everybody what you're about. We let the horses kind of tell us when they're ready to go. That always leads to the best success on...

Dan Blacker was a long way from Santa Anita when he watched the 2003 Breeders' Cup, but the day would have a profound effect on the trajectory of his career. That year Richard Mandella captured four of the eight championship races, capped off by Pleasantly Perfect's Classic victory at 14-1 odds. "Still to this day, I think it's probably the greatest Breeders' Cup achievement of all time," Blacker said. It was a feat that would go down in racing's history books, but for Blacker, it sparked a question: what would...

In the TDN's Breeders' Cup Breakthrough series, we catch up with the six trainers who celebrated their first win at the Breeders' Cup World Championships in 2024. We discuss the road to securing that victory and what they hope to accomplish from here. Next up is Ger Lyons. After scoring in last year's GI Juvenile Turf Sprint with Magnum Force (Mehmas), the successful Meath-based trainer is hoping to get back to the same race this year with Lady Iman (Starman), who makes her next start in Friday's G2 Flying Childers...

Kevin Attard never doubted that he had what it took to train a racehorse. What he wasn't sure of, at least back then, was whether that confidence would be enough. The lifelong horseman was from a family of Canadian trainers and jockeys and he had practically grown up on the backside at Woodbine, but in 2005, his barn was down to five horses. He wrapped up the year with just four wins. "It was the first time in my life that I wrote a resume," Attard recalled. "I had a...

Saffie Joseph Jr. is no stranger to rejection. In the early years of his training career, there were moments when he wondered if chasing his dream had been a big mistake. In what is now a familiar part of Joseph's origin story, his father had warned him against leaving Barbados to launch a stable in America. Joseph came anyway. He arrived at Calder Race Course in 2011 only to be told that there was no stall space available, but he went back to the racing secretary week after week until...

Knowing when a horse is ready to take a step up and when it's time to take a step back--it's one of the fundamentals of training. Get it right and you get rewarded. Get it wrong and, well, you'll likely know pretty quickly. Some trainers just seem to have a feel for where that line is, a sense of when to ask for more and when the horse might need a little more time and preparation. Cherie DeVaux is learning to hone that intuition. "It is a balance to be...

In the TDN's new Breeders' Cup Breakthrough series, we catch up with the six trainers who celebrated their first win at the Breeders' Cup in 2024. We discuss the road to securing that victory, what the breakout win meant to them personally and what they hope to accomplish from here. We start with Kenny McPeek, who secured a long-awaited Breeders' Cup victory with a filly that is known to her fans as 'The Grizzly.'     It wasn't that he never had a shot. It's just that the shots weren't...