The Breeders’ Cup or, in full, the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, is a series of highest-level, Grade 1 horse races, staged annually at various locations throughout North America in late October or early November. Inaugurated, as a one-day event, in 1984 and extended to two days in 2007, the Breeders’ Cup is a truly international championship, attracting the crème de la crème of thoroughbred talent from around the world to compete for over $30 million in prize money.
Run over a mile and a half – as the name suggests, on a natural grass surface – the Breeders’ Cup Turf is a weight-for-age contest, which is open to horses aged three years and upwards; horses aged four years and upwards carry 9st 0lb, three-year-olds bred in the Northern Hemipshere carry 8st 10lb and three-year-olds bred in the Southern Hemisphere carry 8st 5lb. The race is particularly popular with European contenders who, at the time of writing, have won all bar five renewals since the turn of the twenty-first century.
Indeed, one of those winners, High Chaparral, trained at Ballydoyle in Co. Tipperary by Aidan O’Brien, was involved in the first and, so far, only dead-heat for first place in Breeders’ Cup history. In 2003, at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, the dual Derby hero was sent off at 11/2 fourth-favourite to win the race for the second year running, having justified odds-on favouritism at Arlington Park in Chicago, Illinois in 2002. As he had done in 2002, the son of Sadler’s Wells led inside the final furlong but, in the final stride, by the strong-finishing 20/1 chance Johar, trained by Richard Mandella in California. Attempting a mile and a half for the first time, Johar was held up, rather than making the running, as he had done when beaten, over a a mile and a quarter, on his previous start, also at Santa Anita Park; the change of tactics paid off, making him one of four winners saddled by Mandella on the day.