Make No Mistake: The Breeders' Cup, Not the Kentucky Derby, Rules Horse Racing

When it comes to horse racing, the Breeders’ Cup is king, and there is little argument.

And not the kind of king/emperor with inferiority issues like Commodus in Gladiator. It's more like Napoleon or the Sun King.

That may not be the sentiment for millions of people who think the Kentucky Derby—and the Triple Crown at large—is the lone gunman of the horse racing calendar.

The Derby, like NASCAR’s Daytona 500, is the most well-known event in a sport (similar to NASCAR) relegated to the fringe of American sport. The Derby and the 500, likewise, are the aperitif, instead of the entree.

The Triple Crown, to its credit, is an arresting run. It starts with the two-year-olds from the Breeders’ Cup and carries us through the winter, reaching its peak with the Derby and maintaining its mesmerizing hold for five weeks.

Still, the Triple Crown has nothing on the Breeders’ Cup.

On October 31 and November 1 beautiful Santa Anita Park, under the imposing menace of the San Gabriel mountains, cards a slate of 13 championship races worth a total of $24.5 million. The Derby, Preakness and Belmont add up to a mere $5 million. 

Every race on the Breeders’ Cup card is, at minimum, $1 million. These races mean something, which isn’t to say any of the Triple Crown races don’t mean anything, but the Breeders’ Cup is the actual Super Bowl of the calendar year. Divisional championships and legacies are on the line.

California Chrome, our resident Derby winner, will always be the Derby winner, but not necessarily Horse of the Year. That’s where the Breeders’ Cup reigns. In order for Chrome to pull off Horse of the Year and Champion Three-Year-Old, he’ll have to win this race over the heavily favored Shared Belief.

Horses that win the Classic more often than not win their respective classes, whether that be Champion Older Horse or Champion Three-Year-Old. Before Wise Dan made the Breeders’ Cup Mile his personal stomping ground, the Classic anointed Horse of the Year four times in the past 10 runnings, and Blame, winner of the 2010 Classic, earned the Champion Older Horse Eclipse for his nose-win over Zenyatta.

Curlin, in 2007, was the last three-year-old to win the Classic and be named Horse of the Year and Champion Three-Year-Old. With a win, that honor could go to Shared Belief but also Tonalist or California Chrome.

We owe all this drama to the Breeders’ Cup’s allure and its Nazgul-ish reach. But that wasn’t always the case. Since that ominous year of 1984, the Breeders’ Cup effectively diminished the traditional fall championship races.

John Pricci of Horse Race Insider writes:

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Prior to the advent of the event 30 years ago, races such as Belmont Park’s Jockey Club Gold Cup, Champagne and Frizette—to name just three noted Eastern-based fixtures— would have been the conquests that would have helped define championships.

Races like these still help to decide which horses are worthy of best-in-show honors in their respective divisions, but since 1984 they no longer are the final word. 

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Which is exactly why the Breeders’ Cup shoots the moon at every hand. For example, Champion Two-Year-Old went to eight of the last nine winners of the Juvenile.

So long as a trainer has the athletic talent in his barn, the Breeders’ Cup is his buffet, whereas the Triple Crown may be open to a mere sliver of his available stock.

And just like its subtitle says, the Breeders’ Cup is a world championship. Horses from all over the globe—namely Europe, though some come from Japan—ship to the United States in the hopes of eating a slice of the BC pie.

With the presence of international and older horses, the field is often too competitive for many three-year-olds who endured the meat grinder that is the Triple Crown, which condenses three races into five weeks. 

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

It's no wonder California Chrome is the first Derby winner to reach Classic in five years (Mine That Bird, 2009). Just six Derby winners have run in the Classic since 1991. Only two three-year-old Derby winners have won the Classic (Unbridled in 1990 and Sunday Silence in 1989).

Sure, the Derby has a grand impact every year. Ask anyone who won the Derby in a given year and you’ll get a correct answer. Ask someone who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in a given year and it’s far harder to recall. That belies the point that it is the most all-encompassing event of the year in horse racing. The Derby has bigger cultural impact, but the Breeders’ Cup is judge, jury and executioner.

Yes, the general fan has a better grasp on the Derby, but the Breeders’ Cup brands a horse a champion. The Triple Crown in many ways is Triple-A baseball: restricted to three-year-olds while the Breeders’ Cup at large is open to every discipline.

The Kentucky Derby is superior in one way: its 20-horse field. This means little except to racing execs drooling over handle—the amount of money bet on the races on a given day.

A 20-horse field drives betting handle interstellar. Matt Hegarty of Daily Racing Form reported this past year the action on the Derby alone was $124.66 million. As an isolated event, it’s the greatest betting race of the year, but the Breeders’ Cup is the greatest betting over two days.

According to Dan Zucker of Predicteform.com (via BreedersCup.com), handle for the Breeders’ Cup surpasses the Super Bowl (so too does the Derby), this from a collective audience not nearly as general as a football audience.

2013	$135,958,816
2012	127,676,360
2011	$140,070,361
2010	$152,293,176

Take a look at the table and see the numbers the Breeders' Cup garners. That number in 2010 is inflated due to the presence of the great Zenyatta looking to run her record a perfect 20-0 with a win against the boys in the Classic. She lost by a nose to Blame. Remove that outlier and the handle is still enormous.

The Breeders’ Cup has all the muscle and the swagger. It stands alone, an Everest begging those brave enough to climb. The Derby, too, is deserving of its space in the pantheon of American sport. But within the sport of horse racing—to all the trainers, jockeys, owners and handicappers—the Breeders’ Cup is nobody’s understudy.