At Breeders’ Cup, Soul-Stirring Results

ARCADIA, Calif. — There are many thrilling horse races, but it is rare for a horseplayer or a horse lover to witness a performance so powerful and ethereal that it takes the breath away. As twilight placed a halo around the San Gabriel Mountains here Friday, a filly named Royal Delta sent shivers through anyone enthralled by seeing a beautiful creature in top form.

It wasn’t just that Royal Delta won the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic for the second year in a row, but it was how easily she did it against a top field that included two undefeated fillies. She rocketed from the gate and never looked back.

“She ran them off their feet,” her Hall of Fame trainer, Bill Mott, said.

But the soul stirring was just beginning for the 29th edition of the Breeders’ Cup, a two-day international festival that might as well be declared American horse racing’s fourth major and is every bit the equal of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.

In the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the colt Shanghai Bobby laid his claim as the early and rightful favorite to win next year’s Derby. He sat second behind a wicked early pace, shot around the final turn into the lead and then dueled gamely for his rider, Rosie Napravnik, as they held off a relentless charge by He’s Had Enough to win by a head.

It hardly appeared that Shanghai Bobby missed the race-day drug furosemide, which was banned in the five races for 2-year-olds this year and for all 15 of next year’s card. The drug, sold under the name Lasix, helps prevent exercise-induced pulmonary bleeding, which can impair horses’ breathing and performance.

It has been used in the United States since the mid-1970s, but it is prohibited in Europe, Hong Kong and the rest of the world’s major racing circuits.

Most regulators say furosemide enhances performance by flushing 20 to 30 pounds of water out of a horse. In the United States, almost all horses get the injection whether they need it or not.

Breeders’ Cup organizers said they banned the drug to get in step with the rest of the world, and in the months leading to the event, trainers especially disagreed with the ban. The 2-year-olds were examined by veterinarians on the track and in the receiving barn after the races, and none showed visible signs of bleeding, according to a statement by Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director of the California Horse Racing Board. But two trainers, Mark Casse and John Sadler, said their horses had showed signs of bleeding.

While the Lasix debate will continue, a new one opened over who is worthy of Horse of the Year honors. The $5 million Classic was supposed to close the deal for the Bob Baffert trainee Game on Dude, who was the prohibitive favorite. But he ran himself out of the conversation by finishing a distant seventh behind Fort Larned.

In fact, Fort Larned ran his accomplished 11 competitors off their feet much the way Royal Delta had. He burst from the gate in first place, was ridden confidently by Brian Hernandez Jr. and then dueled for the length of the stretch with Mucho Macho Man and the Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith for an impressive half-length victory.

It was his fifth victory in nine starts, but it may not be enough to secure year-end honors. It did, however, open the door for Wise Dan, who easily won his fifth race in six starts against some of the best grass horses in the world in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Not only did Wise Dan break a 15-year-old track record with a time

of 1 minute 31.78 seconds, but his 1 ½-length victory over the 2011 Kentucky Derby winner, Animal Kingdom, caught the fancy of the European news media. Even farther behind were Excelebration, who is regarded as one of Europe’s top milers, and the accomplished French filly Moonlight Cloud.

Europe, England especially, was thrilled by the reign of the undefeated colt Frankel, who was retired last month after winning his 14th in a row. How, a reporter asked, might Wise Dan have done against the mighty Frankel?

Wise Dan’s trainer, Charles Lopresti, warned Morton Fink, who bred and owns the 5-year-old, not to take the bait.

“Don’t worry about it; I’m not going to,” Fink said with a smile. “What Frankel has accomplished, nobody could say anything about him. My God, it’s a miracle what he’s done.

“I’m not going to think about how he would do against Frankel. He’s the best horse in the world. He’s retired. We’re never going to get a chance to run, so no point of thinking about that.”