Bob Neumeier

A quick study of this year’s early lineup for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic shows an eerie similarity to the last time the sport’s championship was held at Churchill Downs in 2000.

For openers, the 6-5 favorite that year was the supposedly invincible Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus. This year, that role will be played by Preakness Stakes winner Bernardini, who will saunter into the starting gate with seven consecutive wins, most of them accomplished in the easiest of fashions. The Darley Stud superstar will likely go off at even money or less, given the deserved hype the son of A. P. Indy has received since that fateful day in Baltimore when he won the Preakness at the expense of the ill-fated Barbaro.

Fusaichi Pegasus was never a factor in that 2000 Classic, a thrilling race between Cal-bred Tiznow and European star Giant’s Causeway.

Trainer Doug O’Neill’s Lava Man is this year Tiznow, based on three factors: He was foaled in California, has an excellent record, and a modest pedigree. He’s dominated California’s Grade 1 races on dirt and turf and takes a perfect 2006 record of 7-for-7 into the Classic.

Critics will point to his record away from the West Coast -- a dismal seventh-place showing in the 2005 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park and an equally wretched 11^th-place debacle against top international competition in last year’s Japan Cup in Tokyo. But in 2000, Tiznow was semi-forgotten at the windows (9.20-1 odds) but turned in as courageous a race as the Classic has ever staged, when he held off Giant’s Causeway on the wire.

Wide journey cost Causeway
Europe’s “Iron Horse” was likely the best horse that day, but jockey Mick Kinane had an impossibly wide journey, disappointing his backers (including yours truly) who thought 7.60-1 on this monster was the steal of the century. Giant’s Causeway’s owners, the ever-present Coolmore Stud folks of Ireland, will try again this year with the $2million dollar yearling, George Washington.

This blue-blood was bred by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stable (anyone remember Barbaro?) and will be tried on dirt for the first time in the Classic. Coolmore sent out another of their prized horses, Dylan Thomas, against Bernardini in the Jockey Club Gold Cup with disastrous results. George Washington has also never raced farther than a mile, but shrewd conditioner Aidan O’Brien has marveled at his workouts on the polytrack surface on the Coolmore grounds. With the poor showing of Dylan Thomas, handicappers will lump the two together, guaranteeing you’ll be receiving lots of “George Washington’s” at the windows should he spring the upset.

Don’t overlook Shadwell Stables’ Invasor in your analysis. Speed figure freaks are still glowing over his magnificent effort in the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. Like George Washington, Invasor will be a price because of two factors: He hasn’t raced since the Whitney on Aug. 5 and the expected betting crush on Bernardini.

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Even if the favorite wins the race, perhaps an exacta with Invasor second could be lucrative. That same scenario occurred in 2004, when can’t miss winner Ghostzapper hooked up with Roses in May (8.70-1) for a juicy $46.60 payoff. That was the year players made Pleasantly Perfect the second choice -- allowing for the better-than-expected payout. Maybe Lava Man will be this year’s Pleasant Perfect and Invasor could slip through the cracks in the exacta pool.

In my Breeders’ Cup memory, the 2000 Tiznow-Giant’s Causeway race ranks in my Top 5 for sheer thrills. With all the similarities between that year and 2006 with the expected lineup of horses, could it be Churchill Downs Classic deja vu?