Raven’s Pass produced the upset of the Breeders Cup series on Saturday by defeating a world class field in the $5 million Breeders Cup Classic.

John Gosden’s entry was never considered a real contender in a field featuring the likes of Curlin, Henrythenavigator and Duke of Marmalade.

Both Curlin and Duke of Marmalade ran strongly early in the race, however over the last 2 furlongs it was Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator who came to the fore, outstripping the favourites to take first and second place respectively.

“What a day to cherish,” said Gosden. “He has been improving over the fall. He has been training better and better. Mentally he’s more mature. Sometimes, things just go right.”

The win by Raven’s Pass gifted jockey Frankie Dettori his second win of the day, and his eighth career Breeders Cup win.

“Brilliant! A dream come true. A dream come true,” an ecstatic Dettori said before performing his signature flying dismount.

Curlin’s connections, meanwhile, where left searching for answers after the race favourite came home in fourth place.

“It was a turf race,” said trainer Steve Asmussen, laying the blame squarely on the synthetic Santa Anita track. “It absolutely was the Pro-Ride surface. He ran his heart out and gave it all he had. He’s a great horse.”

European trainers enjoyed their finest outing in the history of the Breeders’ Cup yesterday as several horses trained in the United Kingdom achieved wins in the world’s richest thoroughbred racing series.

Three of the event’s biggest races went to European entries, with French raider Goldikova scoring the first upset of the day when she defeated a strong field to win the Breeders Cup Mile.

John Gosden also had a slice of the action early in the day when Donativum helped jockey Frankie Dettori to his seventh career Breeders Cup race win in the Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf.

An hour later it was Sir Michael Stoute’s turn to win big at the Breeders Cup, as his St Leger winner, Conduit, produced one of the runs of the festival, coming from behind to win the $3 million Breeders Cup Turf.

Commentators singled out the synthetic track at Santa Anita as the  biggest factor contributing to European success in the Breeders Cup this year.

With European horses accustomed to heavy tracks, the springy surface of the Santa Anita turf is believed to have played directly into the hands of European trainers and their entries.

Zenyatta added another victory to her unbeaten record yesterday, winning the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic in Santa Anita.

John Shirreff’s filly won the race by surging into the lead on the final turn, leaving the Godolphin duo of Music Note and Cocoa Beach to battle it out for 2nd and 3rd place.

The race helped Zenyatta’s jockey, Mike Smith, to his second win of the day.

“She’s just amazing,” Smith said. “As soon as we got away in good order, I knew it was good. I knew it was there any time I asked her. I’ve never seen a horse go past other horses like this filly can. She sets herself up to come to them, and she just blazes by them.”

After the race Zenyatta’s owner, Jerry Moss, indicated that his star filly may retire at the end of the year.

“We sort of saved it all for seeing that she gets back OK, then we’ll talk about it, I guess,” Jerry Moss said. “I don’t really, at this day, see any other … I mean, she’s just too good not to run again. But we have to talk about all that.

“Obviously, she deserves a rest, and then we go from there.”

Star jockey, Frankie Dettori, will be looking to add to his tally of Breeders Cup race victories when the two day festival gets underway at Santa Anita in California today.

Dettori currently boasts the third best Breeders Cup record of any of the jockeys participating in the event, with 6 Breeders Cup wins to his name.

“The Breeders’ Cup is great,” Dettori told the Times. “Even more so for me this year, because I started here 21 years ago. It’s pretty special to come back and see some old mates.”

Dettori will be working with British trainer John Gosden at this year’s meeting, and will partner Raven’s Pass in the feature race - the Breeders Cup Classic.

The Italian-born jockey is confident that his colt has what it takes to challenge the likes of Duke of Marmalade, Henrythenavigator and Curlin in one of the year’s biggest races.

“Raven’s Pass did just over one circuit,” Dettori said of his mount’s preparations. “I was very pleased. He had every reason to boil over this morning, but he was very good. It’s all systems go.”

Jockey Johnny Murtagh, partner of several of Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien’s group one winners this season, has backed Duke of Marmalade as the foreign entry most capable of wresting the Breeders Cup Classic title from American champion, Curlin.

Murtagh was given the freedom to choose between Henrythenavigator and Duke of Marmalade for the Classic, and elected to ride the five-times group one winner Duke of Marmalade in the Breeders Cup feature race.

“If he hooks up with Curlin at the top of the stretch, I think it will be a battle royal. If he gets upsides at the top of the straight, he won’t lack for courage,” Murtagh explained.

Both Murtagh and O’Brien have expressed uncertainty over 2,000 Guineas winner Henrythenavigator’s ability to stay over the 1¼ mile distance run in the Breeders Cup Classic.

“When you go past a mile he has never been there before. You can’t be sure he’ll get it,” O’Brien said yesterday.

O’Brien needs only 4 more group one wins to equal Bobby Frankel’s record of 25 group one wins in a season. The Irish trainer’s other group one entries this weekend include Halfway to Heaven in the Breeders Cup Filly & Mare Turf, and Solider of Fortune in the Breeders Cup Turf.

Breeders Cup Classic favourite, Curlin, has seen his odds shorten with William Hill after avoiding the dreaded wide draw for the Breeders Cup Classic. Curlin will run the 1¼ mile Breeders Cup feature race from the 9th stall, priced at 2/1 by William Hill.

A number of foreign entries benefited from the draw, with Aidan’ O’Brien’s Duke of Marmalade seeing his odds contract from 8/1 to 7/1 after receiving the ideal draw of 4th stall. His stablemate, Henruthenavigator, drew the 5th stall, while Raven’s Pass will start the race next to Curlin in the 8th stall.

French raider Goldikova was the biggest beneficiary of the draw in the Breeders Cup Mile, where she will start in the 4th stall. Aidan O’Brien’s US Ranger also looks like a good bet for the event’s premier mile race, after drawing the 7th stall.

Another British trainer benefiting from the draw at the Breeders Cup was Jeremey Noseda, whose Sixties Icon was drawn in the 4th stall for the first running of the Breeders Cup Marathon. The draw saw Sixties Icon’s odds drop from 9/4 to 13/8 at William Hill.

Breeders Cup Ladies Classic entry Zenyatta is shaping up as one of the best bets of the 2008 Breeders Cup. If her trainer and jockey’s comments are anything to go by, bookmakers would do well to cut their losses and close their books before the race.

“I watch her, and she just blows my mind,” jockey Mike Smith told reporters this week. “When she makes that move and she’s running by everybody, I think, ‘How in the world are you passing these horses just galloping?’ It’s freaky. I’m in awe of her.”

Trainer John Shirreffs was no less effusive in his praise, telling reporters: “”She has a magnificent stride. She is a very big horse, has a huge shoulder, a great physical specimen, great lung capacity, big heart. She has a very big stride and has the ability to just get longer and lower as she goes along in a race.”

With eight wins from eight starts in just under a year of racing, Zenyatta is only 5 race wins away from matching Personal Ensign’s  perfect record of 13 unbeaten runs.

However, Zenyatta’s owner Jerry Moss is taking nothing for granted, and is aware of how rapidly fortunes can change in thoroughbred racing.

“She’ll still have to come up with her best effort to win this race,” Moss said this week. “We’re excited for her, but we don’t consider anything is in the bag.”

Tropic Storm and Red Giant have been pulled out of their respective Breeders Cup races with just days to go before the commencement of America’s most prestigious racing series.

Red Giant was withdrawn from the Breeders Cup Turf after contracting an unidentified infection which raised his temperature and put him off his feed.

“We’re six days out from the race and a 103 temperature won’t give you time to prepare and breeze for a race as tough as this,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He’s responded and his temperature has come back down. I can’t remember him being sick in his life.”

“The timing of it, six days before the race, gave him no time to recover and no time to work,” Pletcher added. Pletcher also suggested that one of the favourites to win the 42 million Breeders Cup Turf has most likely run his last race.

Red Giant will be best remembered for winning the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Turf Championship at Santa Anita on September 27 when he set the 1 and 1/4 mile turf world-record time of 1:57.16.

Tropic Storm, meanwhile, was also withdrawn from his entries to the Breeders Cup Turf and the Breeders Cup Sprint after suffering an injury to soft tissue during training on Sunday.

 Top ranked filly Zenyatta will not run in the Breeders Cup Classic next weekend.

Trainer John Shirreffs had previously suggested that his unbeaten filly would be given the chance to take on some of the world’s finest thoroughbreds in the Breeders Cup Classic, but decided Zenyatta was better suited to the Breeders Cup Ladies Classic.

Zenyatta is now the outright favourite to take a Breeders Cup win in the $2 million Breeders Cup Ladies Classic that will be run on Friday. The filly has won eight out of eight starts, and has 3 group one titles to her credit.

Meanwhile, the final field for the Breeders Cup Classic has been confirmed, with the maximum 14 entries participating in the race.

With Big Brown out of the Breeders Cup Classic, the final field includes Curlin, Go Between, Well Armed, Tiago, Colonel John, Smooth Air, Pyro, Casino Drive, Student Council, Raven’s Pass, Champs Elysee, Duke of Marmalade, Mast Track and Henrythenavigator.

A record 180 racehorses have been confirmed as entries in this years Breeders Cup series. This total includes 35 European entries - the record for non-American runners in the Breeders Cup. Tuesday is the final deadline for entries into a single race.

John Gosden’s Breeders Cup Classic entry, Raven’s Pass, will be heading into the unknown when he participates in the Breeders Cup feature race next Saturday.

While the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner has never raced over a distance of greater than a mile, Gosden believes that his runner has the staying power to handle the extra ¼ mile in the Breeders Cup Classic.

“This horse sees out the mile well here and his pedigree clearly says a mile and one furlong or a mile and one eighth. From that point of view we are confident he will get the mile and eighth,” Gosden told reporters.

“Anyone who wins over the old, stiff mile at Ascot is going to stay beyond that mile, but whether he stays that extra one eighth of a mile there is only one way to find out - and that is to run. You can’t rehearse that kind of thing in a morning.”

With Raven’s Pass’s regular rider Jimmy Fortune currently suspended from racing until the day of the Breeders Cup Classic, Frankie Dettori has been called in to take over riding duties as Gosden looks to become the first non-American trainer to win a Classic title since 1993.