John Pricci

The year is 2025, September, and the World Thoroughbred Championships still is more than a month away. It’s Breeders’ Cup prep day around the country, at Belmont Park, Keeneland and Santa Anita, in three of the six remaining states that still house racetracks and not just simulcast outlets.

The preps will determine which horses run in the two-day Breeders’ Cup World Championships -- four races each day with four other graded stakes races in support. World-wide handle is expected to surpass the half-billion dollar mark for the first time in history. These are heady times indeed for the ancient sport.

As always, everyone is looking for key contenders for the four Day I races, the Juvenile Turf and Juvenile Fillies Turf at 7 furlongs, the Turf Sprint at 5 furlongs and the day’s showpiece, the 10-furlong Filly & Mare Turf.

This is the second year without a dirt-track Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies. No one races their best 2-year-olds extensively on dirt anymore due to declining interest in the Triple Crown and dirt racing in general. This doubtlessly is in response to the Triple Crown format change in which the Kentucky Derby was shortened to 1 1/8 miles, followed by Laurel’s 1 3/16-mile Preakness and the 10-furlong Belmont Stakes.

No one misses Pimlico, which shuttered its doors eight years ago while the Belmont Stakes still remains a popular curiosity. Obviously, no horse since Anachronistic has run a sub-26 second final quarter-mile since the Belmont route was shortened in 2013 and, of course, no winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile ever did win a Derby.

Day II: The piece de resistance
Breeders’ Cup Day II, as usual, will be the piece de resistance. Since inception, closing day has commanded wide interest from breeders and little has changed in recent years to alter that perception. The winners of the mile-long Breeders’ Cup Dirt Distaff and Breeders’ Cup Dirt Classic again will have a profound effect on what’s left of the main-track breeding industry.

The Breeders’ Cup big three; The Mile, the 1 ½-mile Turf, and the 2-mile Turf Marathon, having its third running, again will conclude the highly prestigious Day II program.

Milers, even in the late 20^th Century, were revered as the dominant sires and producers of their generation. The purchase of Lane’s End Farm by Sheikh Mohammed el Maktoum III and its relocation to Dubai three years ago has left America without a top-class dirt nursery. No one spends seven or eight figures for yearlings with dirt pedigrees anymore and only a handful of meaningful dirt races remain for 4-year-olds and up. The racing public identifies with its durable grass stars and has little interest in small-field dirt routes and sprints.

The 2025 Breeders’ Cup will be run at the Gulfstream Racing and Gaming World multiplex for the first time in a decade. Clearly, Gulfstream is reaping the benefits of lengthening its main turf course to 1 ½ miles -- taking a page from Belmont Park’s book -- its inner course to 1 ¼ miles and a turf training course to 1 1/8 miles, all surrounding the one-mile dirt oval. As if they had a choice!

When all remaining tracks; Belmont Park, Saratoga, Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Santa Anita, Del Mar, Oaklawn Park, Arlington Park and Laurel, except the latter’s Preakness Dirt Festival, went to an all turf format four years ago, it really put pressure on Gulfstream to conform. Only Calder Race Course remains an American dirt staple with its Juvenile Training Race program. (There are rumors that Calder’s titular All-American Juvenile Championship will be lengthened to 7 furlongs next season. Phone calls to track President Michael Tabor II seeking comment were not returned. Calder, of course, is the last track to conduct an All-Polytrack program).

A matter of economics
That turf racing has become an American way of racing life is a matter of economics. That was obvious when the International Jockey Club concluded in 2010 that turf field size had grown to an average 11.2 starters per race while dirt races fell to 6.2 starters, below six (5.9) in California for the first time last year. It makes sense considering that winners of any classic or significant preps are retired long before the 4-year-old season. By comparison, turf horses average 6 years and 10 months of racing before retirement. No wonder the foal crop has fallen to below 12,000 for the first time this century.

The changed landscape has proven a boon for business. There are now over 2,000 simulcast facilities nationwide and legal Internet handle on American racing has grown to over $50 billion. Durability of grass horses has paid huge dividends on track and off track since more household-name equines are competing than ever before. The fact that turf racing is less stressful and turf runners maintain form for longer periods has not hurt the bottom line, either.

Change has been good for New York racing, which went through hard times after the scandal laden turn of the century. The growing pains suffered by the Empire Racing Association have finally run their course and live racing in partnership with off-track betting has been thriving since the late ‘00s. Racing downstate no longer needed two facilities since Belmont Park converted to a 1½-mile turf oval with two Polytrack surfaces inside, the 1-mile Silver Polytrack just inside the Bruno Course, the last sand and loam surface in American racing. No wonder press box wags now refer to the antiquated “Test of the Champion” as “The Belmont: A Mile And a Quarter Without Any Water.”

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