Are horse racing fans pessimists or optimists at heart? This year's Breeders' Cup offers a good litmus test.
Racing's two biggest superstars, Rachel Alexandra and Sea the Stars, will not run in the Nov. 6-7 event at Santa Anita.
I can already hear the
glass-is-half-empty gang bemoaning the lack of stars at the Breeders'
Cup. How can the sport crown champions when the top two horses aren't
even there? And then, of course, there's the notion that running
back-to-back Breeders' Cups over a synthetic surface does not yield
true results.
But the glass-is-half-full side will revel in the Breeders' Cup's 14
stakes races with overflow fields, including most of the best horses in
training. Handicappers will not find two better days to play the races.