GI Jockey Club Gold Cup

Bright Future (Curlin), the winner of the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup at the Spa, has been retired to Claiborne Farm with a stud fee of $12,500 LFSN for the 2025 breeding season, the farm said via a press release on Wednesday. Currently available for inspection at Claiborne, the 5-year-old son of Curlin won five of 11 career starts and earned $947,940 for owners Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables. The Todd Pletcher trainee won the Gold Cup at four and took home the GIII Salvator Mile Stakes at Monmouth...

Whatever Next? It's as big a question for the throwback gelding of that name as for his sire, both standing at an exciting crossroads in their respective careers. Next's domination of a niche division of the American Turf is now such that he may now try to adapt to a more competitive, mainstream discipline at the Breeders' Cup. But whether this switch concerns distance or surface, in the Classic or Turf respectively, nobody should be surprised if the gray proves equal to the challenge. For his sire Not This Time...

Godolphin's Highland Falls (Curlin) outdueled favored Arthur's Ride (Tapit) and strode home an easy winner of the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Sunday at Saratoga. The 4-year-old earned his first top-level victory, as well as an automatic berth in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, and gave jockey Flavien Prat his record-setting 13 graded win of the meeting. Arthur's Ride, coming off a win in the GI Whitney Stakes, rushed up and over from his outside post and had a clear advantage heading into the first turn through an opening quarter...

You know how the quote reads directly from the handicapper's Bible, "Behold the pale horse with controlling speed." Heeding that warning arrives once again on Sunday. Halfway through the three-day holiday weekend of Thoroughbred racing, Saratoga and Del Mar card graded races. The Spa's GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes, the penultimate 'Win and You're In' pass to the Breeders' Cup Classic, sets the tone with a myriad of intriguing storylines woven into this fleece as a half dozen entries will try to catch that aforementioned 'pale horse' Arthur's Ride...

In a stylish defense of his title--though the word feels underwhelming to describe the ease--Next (Not This Time) did what Next does best in the Birdstone Stakes: turning a marathon into a runaway. Racing on appointment only the last couple of seasons, his smallest margin of victory came in his first appearance in the GII Brooklyn Stakes last year, where he defeated SW & MGSP Calibrate (Distorted Humor) by 2 1/4 lengths. His largest came when he wrapped 2023 a 25-length winner in Parx's Sept. 23 GIII Greenwood Cup, but...

Does dirt form transfer over to synthetic tracks and vice versa? And do the progeny of traditional Kentucky-based dirt stallions run, for the most part, just as well on synthetic as they do on dirt? These are some of the many questions being asked after a rash of breakdowns over the last few months has led some to call for synthetic tracks, which, statistics show, are safer than dirt and turf courses, to replace dirt tracks. While one horse and one race is not much of a sample size, the...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Rattle N Roll (Connect)'s very promising and then down-a-bit career path is on a solid upward trajectory approaching the historic $1 million GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Saturday at Saratoga Race Course. With six wins--five of them in graded stakes--and just over $1.6 million in earnings, Rattle N Roll has been a big success for the Mackin family's Lucky Seven Stable. After a two-month break from competition, the chestnut will face seven others in the 1 1/4 miles Gold Cup, long one of the premier races...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 3rd-OP, $106K, OC, 4yo/up, 1 1/16m, 2:03 p.m. Last seen checking in fourth in last July's GII Suburban S. at Belmont, MAX PLAYER (Honor Code) makes his 6-year-old debut Saturday in an optional claimer at Oaklawn. The picture of consistency throughout his career, the Steve Asmussen trainee was a Triple Crown contender in 2020, placing third behind Tiz the Law (Constitution) in both the rescheduled GI Belmont S. and the GI Runhappy Travers S. before finishing fifth behind future Horse of the Year Authentic (Into...