Breeders' Cup

The $3-million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational will for the first time be included in the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In, Breeders' Cup Limited and 1/ST announced Thursday. The Breeders' Cup Challenge Series is an international series of 94 stakes races in 15 countries whose winners will receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race at the 2026 Breeders' Cup World Championships, scheduled to be held Oct. 30-31 at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington. As part of the global series of automatic qualifying races...

Damon Thayer has retired from his job as the Senate Majority Floor Leader in the state of Kentucky, where he was one of horse racing's staunchest and most important allies. Thayer may no longer be walking the halls of the Capitol in Frankfort, but he is still working hard to help the sport he loves. He is now a senior advisor with Thoroughbred Racing Initiative (TRI), a group devoted to stopping decoupling efforts at Gulfstream Park and to see to it that racing in South Florida remains a vital part...

Keeneland's Horses of Racing Age, slated to begin Wednesday, Nov. 12 at noon ET, has 216 catalogued entries including the latest supplement in Grade III-placed Crevalle d'Oro (Constitution), the auction house announced Monday. The daughter of Constitution, consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, was third in the GIII Selene Stakes in Canada and came a half-length short of hitting the board last out Nov. 1 in Del Mar's GIII Goldikova Stakes in a blanket finish for the minors. The winner of that race, MGSW & GISP Special Wan (Ire) (Belardo...

Ag Bullet (Twirling Candy) and Sweet Azteca (Sharp Azteca), a pair of Grade I winning gray mares trained by Richard Baltas, will continue their racing careers, according to a report from the Daily Racing Form. Currently a 5-year-old, Ag Bullet notched her first top-level score this past summer when she took on the boys in the GI Jaipur Stakes at Saratoga. After hitting the board in the GI Prevagen Breeders's Cup Sprint at Del Mar in 2024, the Calvin Nguyen & Joey Tran color bearer finished as the runner-up to...

After being a scratch by track veterinarians from the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Tamara (Bolt d'Oro) is back at Santa Anita Park undergoing tests to determine a possible cause. Both Tamara and Sweet Azteca (Sharp Azteca) were scratched the morning of the Filly & Mare Sprint, later won by Splendora (Audible), and were figured to be two of the favorites in the race. At the time of the scratch, no reason had been provided for either horse. Now back in the...

It was one of the better Breeders' Cups that we have seen in a long time and it featured great performances and safe racing, exactly the daily double the Breeders' Cup hopes to hit every year. But the good news has been overshadowed this week by a controversy. Why was White Abarrio (Race Day) scratched just minutes before the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile? The owners, C2 Racing Stable, LLC and Gary Barber, want to know, claiming the horse was "perfectly sound." "There's nothing wrong with him," co-owner Mark Cornett...

With what feels like the culmination from years of mounting pressure, the volcano of opprobrium over Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) erupted this summer, spilling all over the industry. The debate around CAW players typically surrounds the edge they wield over regular gamblers thanks to their use of sophisticated technologies that allow them to precisely read the markets and to place massive wagers across many pools in the final seconds of betting-sometimes leading to extreme late odds changes-as well as the attractive rates and rebates offered to them which are unavailable...

Claiborne Farm has released the stud fees for multiple Grade I winners and newly-minted stallions, Mindframe (Constitution--Walk of Stars, by Street Sense)--set at $50,000 LFSN--and Johannes (Nyquist--Cuyathy, by Congrats), who checks in at $10,000 LFSN and is eligible for the farm's new "Breed Twice, Breed for Life" incentive program, according to a press release from the breeding operation. Mindframe was the only older horse in America to win two Grade I races in 2025, highlighted by a statement victory in the GI Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs, where he...

It was a huge Breeders' Cup Day for 35-year-old Venezuelan-born trainer Jose D'Angelo, who not only won two races, but won two in a row. The greatest 35 minutes of his training career began with a win by 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Shisospicy (Mitole) in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint and D'Angelo also won the next race, the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint, with Florida-bred Bentornato (Valiant Minister). To talk about his Breeders' Cup success story, his background, his plans for the future and more, D'Angelo joined the...

Jose Francisco D'Angelo joins this week's TDN Writers' Room to discuss not only his first, but also his second, Breeders' Cup victory. The Venezuelan trainer earned back-to-back scores on Breeders' Cup Saturday with Shisospicy and Bentornato.

Every year, about 17,000 Thoroughbreds are born in North America. Let's assume half of them are colts: 8,500 male horses bred with ambition in their blood. Of those, maybe 50--if we're being generous--will ever make it to stud. The fillies often retain value as broodmares, but even then the industry quietly accumulates thousands of horses every single year whose careers end without a clear path forward. And for far too many of them, that path ends at the slaughterhouse. We talk about racing fatalities in terms of breakdowns on the...

When 2023 GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner White Abarrio (Race Day) was scratched in the moments before the field loaded into the starting gate for Saturday's GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar, it was on the recommendation of the on-track veterinarian in a call to the stewards. Some of the horse's connections--comprised of C2 Racing Stable, Gary Barber, and La Milagrosa Stable--have been vocal on social media and in the media in the days since about their disagreement with the call. Tuesday afternoon, C2 Racing Stable posted the...