Havre De Grace to Take on Boys in BC Classic at BetLM

Havre De Grace to Take on Boys in BC Classic

Havre de Grace is going where Zeny­atta once did, tak­ing on the boys in the $ 5 mil­lion Breed­ers’ Cup Clas­sic. The 4-year-old filly is 5-of-6 this year and a vic­tory could bur­nish her cre­den­tials for Horse of the Year, although Uncle Mo and Flat Out loom as major threats.

A record total of 193 horses, includ­ing 29 from over­seas, were pre-entered Wednes­day for the $ 26 mil­lion, 15-race Breed­ers’ Cup world cham­pi­onships at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Nov. 4–5. That tops last year’s total of 184.

Todd Pletcher leads all train­ers with 15 horses pre-entered, fol­lowed by Irish­man Aidan O’Brien with 14 and Hall of Famer Bob Baf­fert with 11.

Havre de Grace was pre-entered in the 1-mile Clas­sic, along with 13 oth­ers, includ­ing Uncle Mo, Tra­vers win­ner Stay Thirsty, Jockey Club Gold Cup win­ner Flat Out, Santa Anita Hand­i­cap win­ner Game On Dude, Euro­pean star So You Think, Bel­mont Stakes win­ner Ruler on Ice and 2010 Bel­mont win­ner Drosselmeyer.

Other pre-entries in the Clas­sic are Await the Dawn, Headache, Prayer for Relief, Rat­tlesnake Bridge and To Honor and Serve.

Havre de Grace’s owner Rick Porter also entered his filly in the $ 2 mil­lion Ladies’ Clas­sic as an insur­ance policy.

“The only rea­son we wouldn’t run in the Clas­sic is if we drew the 1 hole or if we saw a com­plete dif­fer­ence in the weather on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day,” he said on a con­fer­ence call.

Final entries and the post-position draw will be Monday.

Uncle Mo surely counts as one of the sport­ing world’s more remark­able come­back sto­ries of the year. The 3-year-old colt was the early Ken­tucky Derby favorite before being side­lined after the first loss of his career in the Wood Memo­r­ial. He was out for 4 1–2 months with a life-threatening liver dis­ease that caused him to lose 200 pounds.

“Los­ing 200 pounds in May and June, gain­ing weight back and now com­pet­ing at such a high level, it takes not just a super horse but one of the great­est of all time if he’s able to do it,” owner Mike Repole said. “Uncle Mo has never looked bet­ter, has never trained bet­ter. This is the Uncle Mo we thought we’d see the whole 3-year-old season.”

Uncle Mo will be run­ning 1 1–4 miles for the first time on Nov. 5, but Repole doesn’t think he’s ask­ing the colt for too much.

“This is no ordi­nary horse. This is a pretty spe­cial horse,” he said. “If any horse in the his­tory of rac­ing can accom­plish it, it’s Uncle Mo. I think the fans, media and ESPN and the Breed­ers’ Cup wants it.”

Repole has another shot to win the Clas­sic in Stay Thirsty.

Flat Out was the first Clas­sic entrant to arrive in Louisville. He’s trained by 70-year-old Charles “Scooter” Dickey.

Among train­ers, Pletcher, O’Brien, Baf­fert and Bill Mott will all sad­dle two horses in the Clas­sic, which lost Tizway to injury on Monday.

Game On Dude will attempt to give Baf­fert his first vic­tory in the Clas­sic, along with Chan­tal Suther­land, who could become the first woman jockey to win. One of the horse’s co-owners is retired Los Ange­les Dodgers man­ager Joe Torre.

Gio Ponti was pre-entered in both the Clas­sic and the $ 2 mil­lion Mile. The 6-year-old Euro­pean star fin­ished sec­ond to Zeny­atta in the 2009 Clas­sic and was sec­ond to Goldikova in last year’s Mile at Churchill, which is host­ing horse racing’s rich­est two days for a record eighth time and sec­ond year in a row.

The top inter­na­tional super­star is Goldikova, who is seek­ing a record fourth-consecutive win in the Mile. The 6-year-old horse has won 14 top-level stakes races in her career. She’s 2-for-5 this year. Her two strongest chal­lengers will be Gio Ponti, if he doesn’t go in the Clas­sic, and Coura­geous Cat, sec­ond in the 2009 Mile.

“She’s as pop­u­lar as Zeny­atta and Rachel Alexan­dra,” said trainer Freddy Head of Goldikova, who is based in France. “I come with great con­fi­dence. I think she’s as well and as good as she was in the pre­vi­ous years.”

The two-day event will open next Fri­day with a new race, the Juve­nile Sprint for 2-year-olds at six furlongs.

On Sat­ur­day, the $ 2 mil­lion Juve­nile at 1 1–16 miles fea­tures Nor­folk Stakes win­ner Cre­ative Cause, who defeated Drill, win­ner of the Del Mar Futu­rity, along with dom­i­nant Cham­pagne win­ner Union Rags.

Friday’s card will fea­ture six Breed­ers’ Cup races, with five for females only, high­lighted by the $ 2 mil­lion Ladies’ Clas­sic. Lead­ing con­tenders include Ken­tucky Oaks win­ner Plum Per­fect; Royal Delta; and Coach­ing Club Amer­i­can Oaks win­ner It’s Tricky.

A max­i­mum of 14 starters are allowed in each race.

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by X2 news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more news see: Havre de Grace to take on boys in BC Clas­sic .

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