Sir Michael Stoute has announced that he will be sending his 2008 St Leger winner, Conduit, to the Breeders Cup to contest the Breeders Cup Turf.

Conduit helped Stoute to his long-awaited maiden St Leger title at Doncaster earlier in the season. The horse is one of a host of British Classics and group one winners competing in this year’s Breeders Cup, including the likes of Henrythenavigator and Duke of Marmalade.

“The plan now is to go for the Breeders’ Cup,” Peter Reynolds, Stoute’s racing manager, told The Herald. “It’s really very exciting to be going over to America with a classic winner. If he can manage to win a race such as this after winning a Leger, it would be great for his stud value. Hopefully he has enough speed for it.”

Conduit’s performance at the St Leger should give Sir Michael Stoute cause for optimism. The Dalkhani colt won the race by 3 lengths, easily taking the race from the previously unbeaten Unsung Heroine. Among the horses Conduit beat at the St Leger was Oaks winner Look Here.

Conduit is presently priced at generous odds in William Hill’s Breeders Cup Turf ante-post betting markets.

American champion racehorse, Curlin, will run in the 2008 Breeders Cup Classic.

The decision to allow Curlin to defend his Breeders Cup Classic title at Santa Anita later this month follows on weeks of uncertainty over whether or not Curlin’s owners would permit him to run on the synthetic turf used at Santa Anita.

News that Curlin will be participating in the 2008 Breeders Cup Classic has provided a boost to the Breeders Cup, which had been facing the prospect of going ahead without appearances by either of America’s two top racehorses, after Big Brown withdrew from the Breeders Cup Classic with a leg injury yesterday.

 ”I owe it to the horse. Curlin tells us he’s fit. He loves to compete,” owner Jess Jackson told reporters after announcing that Curlin’s entry fees to the 2008 Breeders Cup Classic would be paid on schedule. “I want to give hard-core racing fans an opportunity to see him race one more time.”

While Jackson expressed regret over the fact that Curlin will never have the chance to race against Big Brown, he’ll no doubt be savouring the opportunity to see Curlin become only the second horse in the history of the Breeders Cup Classic to defend his title.

The dream matchup between Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown and 2,000 Guineas and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Henrythenavigator is not to be.

The two horses were due to meet at the 2008 Breeders Cup Classic, in a field featuring several other star performers, including Duke of Marmalde and Curlin.

However, a foot injury has ruled Big Brown out of the 2008 Breeders Cup, and is likely to bring an end to the champion thoroughbred’s career.

Big Brown injured himself during a 6 furlong training run on Tuesday morning, clipping his right hoof and injuring sensitive tissue.

“It looked like he grabbed himself in a bad spot,” trainer Rick Dutrow Jr was quoted as saying.

According to his owner, Big Brown’s racing career is over, with Michael Iavarone telling reporters: “It’s in the best interests of the horse to let him recover and move on to his breeding career.”

Many racing fans had been looking forward to a duel between Big Brown and North America’s most successful racehorse, Curlin.

Curlin had been due to test the synthetic track at Santa Anita yesterday as his trainer deliberated whether or not to run the reigning Breeders Cup Classic champion in the 2008 renewal.

Joel Stakes winner Eagle Mountain is set to participate in the Breeders Cup Turf after performing well at a workout at Newmarket Racecourse earlier this week.

Trainer Mike de Kock has confirmed that Eagle Mountain is running strongly enough to justify the long trip from Newmarket to Santa Anita.

“The workout went very well and I am very pleased,” De Kock was quoted as saying by Setanta. “The Breeders’ Cup Turf remains the plan for him now, nothing has changed on that score.”

Eagle Mountain showed his class when competing in the Royal Ascot Festival in 2007, coming second in the prestigious Champion Stakes.

Another top English performer likely to travel to the Breeders Cup is 1,000 Guineas runner up Mad About You, who achieved an impressive win in Naas on the weekend, taking the Castlemartin Stud EBF Garnet Stakes.

Mad About You has participated in four group one races in her career, including the 2008 English Oaks. Her three and a half length victory on Saturday has convinced trainer Dermot Weld that she deserves an outing in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Aidan O’Brien will be hoping that Duke of Marmalade can put his first defeat behind him when he competes in the 2008 Breeders Cup later this month.

Duke of Marmalade has been one of O’Brien’s star performers this season, helping to put his trainer in sight of the record for most group one victories in a season.

O’Brien’s star runner won 5 consecutive races before performing disappointingly in the group one Prix Arc de Triomph in Paris, where he finished in 7th place as Zarkava stole the limelight.

“He seems fine and we have the choice of running him in either the Turf or the Classic at Santa Anita,” O’Brien told the Racing Post. “We haven’t sat down yet and discussed final plans for the Breeders’ Cup meeting but we will be doing that before long. We also have to decide whether Henrythenavigator will be going for the Mile or Classic.”

“It is very possible Soldier Of Fortune will go for the Breeders’ Cup Turf.”

O’Brien’s group one tally for the season currently stands at 21 wins, and the trainer has stated that he’ll need to win at least one of the remaining three British group one races left in the season to have any hope of breaking the record for most group one races won in a season.

Comeptitors in the 2008 Breeders Cup racing festival will be tested for drugs in accordance with recent law changes in American thoroughbred racing.

While this year’s event won’t feature blanket testing of the runners in all 14 races, attempts are being made to clamp down on the practice of doping that is endemic in American thoroughbred racing.

Tests will be performed on horses already entered into the race ahead of the 2008 Breeders Cup, rather than in the aftermath of the festival.

Drugs tested for will include EPO and darbepoetin, both of which improve the transfer of oxygen to horses muscles by increasing the red blood cell count. This in turns increases endurance, and the drugs are easily removed from the bloodstream following a race.

Trainers caught doping their horses will face severe penalties, including a minimum one year suspension from American racing. Trainers caught doping three or more times will be banned from competitive racing for life.

The 2008 Breeders Cup will not mark the first occasion that competitors have been tested for drugs at the Breeders Cup. Out-of-competition drug testing was first introduced at the 2007 Breeders Cup, where none of the horses tested positive for banned substances.
 

Churchill Downs racecourse has been selected at the venue for the 2010 Breeders Cup. The turn of the decade will mark the seventh occasion that the most prestigious flat racing meeting in the United States has been run at this venue.

Churchill Downs will host the Breeders Cup from the 5th to the 6th of November 2010, with the five events for mares and fillies run on the first day of racing and another nine races run on the second day of the Breeders Cup festival.

The Breeders Cup was first raced at Churchill Downs racecourse in 1988, and the event was last hosted at this venue in 2006. In 2000 the venue set the stage for one of the greatest moments in Breeders Cup history, when Tiznow became the first horses to claim successive Breeders Cup Classic titles.

“We are delighted to be returning the Breeders’ Cup to Churchill Downs and to our great supporters in Kentucky and throughout the region,” Breeders’ Cup Chairman William S. Farish, Jr said after the announcement of the 2010 Breeders Cup venue.

“Churchill Downs has proven to be an outstanding Breeders’ Cup venue and is extremely popular with our horsemen and fans from around the world. Churchill will also provide an extraordinary site for our expanded two-day program of the Championships.”

Trainer Nick Zito has announced that the Whitney Stakes and Massachusetts Handicap winner, Commentator, will not be running in the 2008 Breeders Cup Classic.

According to Zito, Commentator is yet to recover from his winning run at the Masachusetts Handicap, and will not be risked in an attempt to win one of the most prestigious races at the Breeders Cup.

Zito has made a habit of running his classy thoroughbred sparingly, and should Commentator make a return to the racetrack in 2008 it will be at either the Cigar Mile or Clark Handicap.

“He had his first workout since the race on Monday,” Zito told ESPN. “He was supposed to work last Thursday, but he wasn’t up to it. After talking to all the people who care for the horse, and who get on his back, like his exercise rider, Carlos Correa, I just don’t think he’s ready to travel.”

“He’s going to need more time until his next work,” Zito concluded. “I have to give him more time in between works. I think the best thing is to wait. If we can find something at the end of the year, fine. If not, we’ll try to chase Kelso next year.”

A historic match up between 2007 Breeders Cup Classic winner Curlin and Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown is still on the cards after Curlin was seen working out at Santa Anita this weekend.

Curlin nudged his winnings past the $10 million mark this year, and recently won the Jockey Club Gold Cup. However, his trainer, Steve Asmussen, has refused to clarify whether or not his runner’s Santa Anita outing is suggestive of a Breeders Cup Classic title defence.

“We need to give Curlin the patience he deserves,” was one of the crumbs Asmussen offered to reporters following Curlin’s practice run. “We are here to put his mind at ease, to get him acclimated. We are doing this because we accept our responsibility as Curlin’s caretaker.”

Curlin will face a formidable challenge from Big Brown should he attempt to defend his Breeders Cup Classic title later this month.

Big Brown, the season’s star 3 year old, won two legs of the Triple Crown earlier in the year, and apart from a stumble in the Belmont Stakes has swept aside all opposition to take 6 wins from 7 starts in 2008.

Star jockey Corey Nakatani is expected to miss the 2008 Breeders Cup after breaking his collar bone in a fall at Santa Anita at the Oak Tree meeting on Wednesday.

Nakatani, who was the top jockey at the 2006 Oak Tree meeting, went down with his mount Easy on the Eye after the thoroughbred clipped its heels seconds after the start of the $100,000 Morvich Handicap.

The injury is Nakatani’s second of the year, following a similar injury sustained whilst training at Hollywood Park earlier on in the year. Nakatani’s doctor has stated that the star jockey will be out of racing for at least three weeks.

“It’s a new injury and a clean break,” said Nakatani’s agent, Ron Ebanks. “Doctors will see him in three weeks for further evaluation, but he’s expected to be out from three to five weeks.”

The 2008 Breeders Cup is scheduled to be run between the 24th and 25th of October at Santa Anita.