Breeders' Cup

Trainer Will Walden has come a long way in a short period of time. Training only since 2022, through Tuesday, he had 35 wins on the year from 141 starters for a win rate of 25%. His stable's earnings stood at $3.384 million. It's been a good year, in part because of a very good day. Walden won his first Grade I race last Saturday at Keeneland when the New York-bred Rhetorical (Not This Time) won the GI Coolmore Turf Mile. It was an important step for a trainer who...

Trainer Will Walden joined this week's TDN Writers' Room to discuss his first career Grade I win with Rhetorical in the Coolmore Turf Mile.

JCB Stables' Sarawak Rim (Arg) (Remote {GB}) will likely be the final horse trainer Ignacio Correas IV saddles before retiring to his native Argentina in mid-November when she goes postward in the Nov. 1 GI Breeders' Cup Distaff. The 4-year-old filly--beaten just once in five trips to the post in Argentina--worked four furlongs from the gate in :48.60 (6/22) Wednesday at Keeneland. Sarawak Rim won the May 1 G1 Gran Premio Criadores at Hipodromo Argentino De Palermo in her most recent race and she has been with Correas at Keeneland...

The final deadline to nominate foals born in 2025 to the Breeders' Cup program at the one-time nomination fee of $400 is at 11:59 p.m. ET Oct. 15. The $400 weanling nomination entitles each foal with lifetime eligibility to the Breeders' Cup World Championships and the Breeders' Cup racing programs. All foals sired by a fully nominated North American Breeders' Cup stallion are eligible for nomination to the Breeders' Cup program in their year of birth at the weanling rate. From Oct. 16-Feb. 28, the nomination cost rises to $1,500.

Sierra Leone (Gun Runner--Heavenly Love, by Malibu Moon), last year's champion 3-year-old colt, will join the roster at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky next year, the operation announced Wednesday. Racing for Peter Brant, Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, Westerberg, and Brook Smith and trained by Chad Brown, Sierra Leone is expected to make his final career start in the Nov. 1 GI Breeders' Cup Classic, a race he won in 2024. Sierra Leone, who topped the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale when selling for $2.3 million, was tabbed a 'TDN...

Morgane Kervarrec knows she's not exactly known for being the most outgoing person on the backside. But for her, the job has never been about small talk or making appearances. It's about the work, the horses, and the quiet rhythm of morning training at Santa Anita. "People will say sometimes that maybe I'm not really social," Kervarrec admitted. "It's not that I'm tired of being social. I'm just tired of fake connections with people that you don't get with animals. That's why I picked this job. You deal less with...

Rebel's Romance (Dubawi) and Notable Speech (Dubawi) look set to spearhead a top-class team for Charlie Appleby at next month's Breeders' Cup at Del Mar, a meeting at which the Godolphin trainer has excelled since saddling his first winner in 2013. Appleby took his tally of Breeders' Cup winners to 11 at Del Mar last year when Rebel's Romance won the Turf for a second time, having also been successful at Keeneland in 2022. More recently, the seven-year-old gained the ninth top-level victory of his career when heading back Stateside...

Trainer Kenny McPeek doesn't know what happened to Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) in Sunday's GI Juddmonte Spinster Stakes at Keeneland, where she was a non-threatening fourth in one of the worst races of her career. He's checked her from head to toe and has not found anything wrong with her. Other than ruling out a start in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, McPeek isn't sure what is next for the 2024 Horse of the Year, but admitted that retirement is a possibility. "You have to consider retiring her," he said....

Social media influencer Griffin Johnson and XBTV analyst and host Zoe Cadman will co-host Thoroughbred Charities of America's Bash at the Breeders' Cup presented by Churchill Downs Incorporated Oct. 31 at the Del Mar Hilton. The evening will offer savory bites, handcrafted cocktails, live music, and a live auction to benefit the TCA. Tickets to the event are availabe here. Live auction items to be offered will include a Del Mar racing package, a box at the Whitney Stakes in Saratoga, a box at the Blue Grass Stakes, a stay...

Spendthrift Farm homebred Brave Deb (Authentic) completed a big weekend for the historic farm--while adding a second graded win in two days for her sire--with an authoritative victory in the GIII Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita Sunday. Spendthrift's colors were carried to victory at Keeneland by Tommy Jo (Into Mischief) in the GI Darley Alicibiades Stakes Friday and by Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) in the GI Claiborne Futurity Saturday. The farm's homebred Tamara (Bolt d'Oro), a daughter of champion Beholder, returned with a victory of her own in the...

The last Amerman Racing homebred by Oscar Performance to carry the colors home in the GIII Zuma Beach Stakes was Endlessly, who captured the race as the 80 cents on the dollar favorite in 2023. Stark Contrast, a horse with a pair of races under his belt, duplicated the feat at Santa Anita Sunday. Like Endlessly, Stark Contrast is also from the Michael McCarthy shedrow. The colt tried turf for his conditioner at second asking over the seaside oval grass course and he won by a length Sept. 6. Set...

It was billed as a match-up between 4-year-old reigning Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) and Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro), the leading sophomore filly nipping at her heels, but Gin Gin (Hightail) didn't get the memo, going wire-to-wire and holding off Nitrogen's last-gasp effort to narrowly upset the GI Juddmonte Spinster Stakes at Keeneland Sunday. The victory earned the Calumet Farm homebred an automatic berth in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff. Let go at 18-1, Gin Gin was prompted by favored Thorpedo Anna through fractions of :23.74 and :46.69,...