Breeders Cup Preview: Uncle Mo Favorite, Havre de Grace, Game On Dude Challenging

The Breeders Cup is the World Series of horse racing. Frank Doyle looks at the runners and riders at Churchill Downs on Friday and Saturday.

Uncle Mo is the ante-post story of this year’s Breeders Cup Classic. When he won the Breeders Cup Juvenile last year, hopes were high among Uncle Mo’s connections that he would go on to dominate the Triple Crown races of 2011.

But life’s not always like that. Uncle Mo developed a liver problem that scratched him from the Kentucky Derby and looked to have drawn the curtain on his career as a three year old.

Until trainer Todd Pletcher returned Uncle Mo to racing at Saratoga in August. He lost by a short head over seven furlongs but showed his quality six weeks later when he stormed home over a mile at Belmont on October 1st.

That performance at Belmont was evidence enough for sports betting fans that Uncle Mo was back to his best and that’s what makes him the ante-post favorite for the Breeders Cup Classic. But there are lots of other contenders in what looks a strong field.

The second favorite, Havre de Grace, is bidding to join 2009 winner Zenyatta as only the second filly to have won the richest horse race on American soil. Sharps are talking about So You Think, a son of Epsom Derby and Breeders Cup Turf winner High Chaparral this is trained by Ireland’s Aiden O’Brien, the Master of Coolmore.

Todd Pletcher was impressed with the form shown by So You Think in a losing run at storied Royal Ascot in June, but running on dirt is completely different to running on turf. Can So You Think adapt?

Belmont Stakes winner Drosselmeyer might find the distance to his liking and he’s available at a tempting price. But the most intriguing horse of all in the Breeders Cup Classic has to be Game On Dude. The four year old is trained by Bob Baffert, has won over 1 1/4 at Santa Anita in March and is ridden by Winnipeg’s Chantal Sutherland.

Sutherland rides Great Hot in the Filly and Mare Sprint on Friday but Game On Dude has real credentials to win the Classic. In the year that the Jets returned to the NHL, wouldn’t it be some story if Sutherland could become only the second woman to win a Breeders Cup race?

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