The Decline and The Fall

There are stakes races galore being run at Belmont and Santa Anita this weekend, the unofficial beginning of prep season for the Breeders' Cup. The fall months have traditionally been great times for the sport. There are events with everything, history, big purses, famous venues. Everything, this year, that is, but racing's biggest stars.

Eight Grade I races will be contested Saturday, three at Belmont, five at Santa Anita. Across North America, 18 graded stakes races will be run this weekend. There's a lot of money out there and that's a lot of stakes races, yet not one horse currently ranked among the top 10 in the NTRA's weekly poll will be racing this weekend. To find a horse on the NTRA list that will be competing, you have to go all the way down to No. 18, Oscar Performance (Kitten's Joy), a starter in the GI Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont.

The historic GI Jockey Club Gold Cup will highlight the Oct. 7 card at Belmont. It looks like it's going to be a small field, with only one Grade I winner taking part, Keen Ice (Curlin).

There's no need to explain what is happening here, but here goes: The Breeders' Cup has become such an important goal for owners, trainers and breeders that races like the GI Beldame, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the GI Awesome Again, the Joe Hirsch and so many others have become almost meaningless.

Trainers are told that the Breeders' Cup is the only goal that matters and most trainers believe that the best way to get their horse to racing's championship day is to give them seven or eight weeks off beforehand.

They may not be wrong. Bob Baffert, who holds a very strong hand for this year's GI Breeders' Cup Classic, won the 2016 Classic with Arrogate (Unbridled's Song) and the 2015 Classic with American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile). Prior to the Breeders' Cup, both last raced 10 weeks earlier, in the GI Travers.

This year, Baffert has at least four Classic contenders in Arrogate, Collected (City Zip), West Coast (Flatter) and Cupid (Tapit). Among that quartet, only Cupid is racing this weekend, in the GI Awesome Again. Collected and Arrogate will come in off 11-week layoffs. West Coast's layoff will be a more modest six weeks.

Trainer Steve Asmussen, who trains likely Classic favorite Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}), is using the same M.O. His horse last raced Sept. 2, in the GI Woodward at Saratoga. Stellar Wind (Curlin), one of the favorites for the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, will come into that race off a 14-week layoff.

The pattern has been developing for years, yet it has gone to a new level in 2017. Very few trainers are willing to run their top horses in the Breeders' Cup without giving them several weeks off beforehand. Should this year's assemblage of “layoff horses” dominate the Breeders' Cup it will only encourage more people to sit out the major fall events. The fall preps are falling apart.

That's a shame. These are great races and none more so than the Jockey Club Gold Cup, which was the Breeders' Cup Classic before there was a Breeders' Cup Classic. October, once one of the most exciting months of the year in the sport, is turning into just another page on the calendar.

It's terrible for the sport. But there's nothing that can be done about it, at least until, for whatever reason, there is a massive shift in the mind-set of trainers. Once it would have been unthinkable to come into something as important as the Breeders' Cup off a 10-week layoff. Trends come and go and one can only hope that some day trainers will again believe that there is no harm in racing a horse every three weeks or so and that a Jockey Club Gold Cup win sure does look good on a horse's record.

For now, though, the best strategy is for the tracks holding these preps to throw in the towel. It's already starting to happen. The Gold Cup has been reduced from $1 million to $750,000 and all five of the Grade I's held at Santa Anita Saturday are worth $300,000, the minimum purse allowed for a race to maintain Grade I status.

NYRA, Santa Anita, Keeneland and any other track that puts together a slew of fall “prep” races might want to consider taking this to the next step. If you're not going to get Grade I horses for Grade I events, why pay Grade I money? Even with all the money it has to spend on purses, NYRA would probably be better off lowering the Gold Cup purse even more, to $500,000. The purses being paid out this weekend and next just are not luring anyone.

The money can be better allocated by strategically moving it around to races that do draw the big names or, perhaps, by putting it into overnight races.

Fortunately, none of this hurts the Breeders' Cup itself. Come the first Friday and Saturday in November no one will care that a bunch of horses sat out the GI Rodeo Drive, the GI Flower Bowl, the GI Spinster or even the Gold Cup. There's some great racing yet to come. We're just going to have to wait for it.