DEL MAR, Calif. – Well, they’ve done it. Five Breeders’ Cup races Friday, nine more Saturday, and in every one of them at least one entrant from a distant land. “World Championships” still rings hollow – a vast number of the world’s best Thoroughbreds don’t travel for the Breeders’ Cup – but the “world” part has come to fruition. And not just in the European sense, part of the Breeders’ Cup from the event’s inception. Nineteen horses shipped here from Japan, and the more you look at the races, the more it looks like they’ll have a say. The Europeans, too. Classic No need to dive too deeply into City of Troy. The amount of ink – or its digital equivalent – spilled over this colt could fill a significant part of the nearby San Dieguito Lagoon. He has class, he has speed, he has stamina, he has an American Triple Crown-winning sire, and he has an all-time great trainer, Aidan O’Brien, and jockey, Ryan Moore, pulling the levers. If he handles dirt, he contends, though at underlaid odds. On that front, mixed visual messages this week. Galloping easily Tuesday, he first appeared to float over Del Mar dirt, but turning into the homestretch, there went his left leg moving with a dramatic lift and inefficiency easier overcome on turf than dirt. :: Get the inside scoop from the morning workouts with Breeders' Cup Clocker Reports from Mike Welsch and the DRF Clocker Team Ushba Tesoro’s big Classic chance came last year at Santa Anita. Nearly an 8-year-old now, he prepped in the same Japanese race as he did in 2023, winning authoritatively a year ago, checking in a far more tepid second this time. Derma Sotogake outran Ushba Tesoro finishing second in the 2023 Classic. Just 4, his arrow still should point up. Instead, Derma Sotogake went down with a whimper, tracking the pace before sticking his hooves in the ground and finishing a well-beaten fifth in the same Japanese prep as Ushba Tesoro. Even if he returned rusty, that was discouraging. We’ve buried the Japanese lede, Forever Young, already known to Americans from his Kentucky Derby, which he probably wins without Sierra Leone assaulting him. Unlike his American counterparts, Forever Young spent the summer staying fresh, growing up, and waiting for the fall. His Classic prep, his first start since the Derby, went perfectly, Forever Young dropping just behind the leader, coming out in the homestretch, and cruising on past, working enough to move him forward, not so hard as to set him back. As you’d expect, he’s grown and matured since May. And at the Derby, Forever Young already had traveled and raced in Saudi Arabia and Dubai before making a third stop in America. This time he comes straight from Japan – with a purpose. Turf Let’s take these in post-position order. You might think, skimming the form, that Rousham Park doesn’t belong here. Think again. Rousham Park won three in a row during 2023. The farther he ran, the stronger his rivals, the better he performed, culminating in that strong Sankei Sho win over 11 furlongs. Whether through instruction or pilot error, he got a dreadful ride in Hong Kong, held so hard at the tail of the field that it stifled his run: Why not let the horse move into position on the backstretch, like he wanted? :: ON SALE NOW: DRF Breeders' Cup Packages! Get everything you need to win and save 41% off the retail price. In March, he lost the Osaka Hai, a serious Grade 1, by a neck while running a remarkable race, moving from nearly last to nearly first in the blink of an eye with a very early move at the head of the backstretch. Caught wide with no cover on the far turn, he still nearly prevailed. Yielding turf held him back in the Takarazuka Kinen, and the 1 1/8-mile comeback race Oct. 6, a pure prep, took the edge off a horse who can get too keen, setting him up for his first 1 1/2-mile try. He reunites with Christophe Lemaire, with whom he’s gone 6-4-1-1. Emily Upjohn, once a top, top-class filly, hasn’t been the same since back-to-back tours de force in June and July 2023. She crept back toward her better form the last two starts but has no apparent path to victory. Switch his troubled trip with Auguste Rodin’s perfect one and Shahryar wins the 2023 Turf. Rebel’s Romance got the jump on him in Dubai, Shahryar plugging along gamely to save second. He went evenly for fifth in his most recent start, the Sapporo Kinen in mid-August, after finishing 11th using the same race as a springboard to the 2023 Turf. Over and over the trainer has gotten the 2021 Japan Derby winner to peak in the most important races. The two races in the last year suggesting Luxembourg can prevail Saturday lose luster under scrutiny. Romantic Warrior is one of the better Hong Kong horses of recent vintage but decidedly did not run to his best form in the 2023 Hong Kong Cup. Less than one length separated the first five across the finish in a race run at level weights, the third- and fourth-place finishers with no business coming close. The Coronation Cup? That had four other runners, none to be confused with a proper Group 1 performer, and Luxembourg controlled a slow pace. Jayarebe offers a more appealing proposition than Luxembourg as a very progressive and lightly raced 3-year-old trained by a two-time Turf winner. His 2024 debut turned heads, and Jayarebe’s Hampton Court at Royal Ascot stamped him as a serious horse. He wound up making his run earlier than ideal in the Ornano, and no shame there losing to Economics, one of the top handful of 10-furlong horses in the world. Softer ground in the Prix Dollar probably didn’t suit, Jayarebe galloping out well in front after a moderate win, and while the colt hasn’t tried 1 1/2 miles, he’ll get the distance. All that said, this feels like a practice run for the 2025 Turf, when Jayarebe, who has positional pace and won’t race from too far behind, could come back to America a more fully formed horse at age 4. Wingspan, who only debuted in the spring, has come on like gangbusters the second part of her season, and hit a new peak when second in the Group 1 Fillies and Mares at Ascot. She plays her game on the front end, leading and trying to gallop the competition into submission, and might not be quite good enough yet. Finally, Rebel’s Romance, a 6-year-old gelding now on the fourth act of his career. The rising action of the second ended with a BC Turf win at Keeneland, followed by a year of struggle, then an improbable resurrection this season. Considering that his best races come over an entirely different kind of course, his third behind heavyweights Goliath and Bluestocking in the King George was excellent. In Germany last out, the wire saved Rebel’s Romance, nearly run down by a horse he should’ve bossed. A new crack in a smoothly patched façade? Maybe? Mile We come not to disparage the likely favorite, Notable Speech, but merely to serve a plate of food for thought. Notable Speech won the 2000 Guineas at 16-1, not the sort of high-profile contender typically associated with Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby. He rallied from last while benefiting from two things: Riding a race flow wave in a Guineas run at a scorching early tempo, and the utter failure of the race’s best horse, City of Troy. Signature win No. 2 came in the Sussex – quite a poor renewal of that important fixture. Only four others competed. Heavily favored Henry Longfellow flopped. Runner-up Maljoom never has come close to winning a Group 1. Notable Speech pulled a favorable trip. Is this emperor wearing any clothes? Henry Longfellow made some lists of likely Aidan O’Brien-trained Breeders’ Cup runners, but instead we get Diego Velazquez, sparked to life with a cutback to shorter distances late this summer. The two recent wins look better on paper than video, and it’s no coincidence the one over nine furlongs exceeded the mile. Diego Velazquez won both racing forward with moderate cruising speed; his turn of foot seems minimal, at least for a European. :: Get Breeders' Cup Betting Strategies from Brad Free and David Aragona for exclusive wager recommendations and play the races with confidence! A wonderful season for Porta Fortuna, yet one guided by clever management and good … fortuna. Porta Fortuna deserves credit for making her own trips, but all of them have been good. She has stuck to female-restricted competition throughout 2024 and must hit a higher level to win – an iffy proposition. Geoglyph rates higher than Ten Happy Rose among the two Japan-based entrants. Neither has much chance. Geoglyph has lost 12 in a row and shows no obvious sign of excelling over a distance this short. Six-year-old Ten Happy Rose won a major Japanese mile – at odds of 207-1. Hard to fault her strong rally from midpack in that Victoria Mile, though even there, she looked somewhat clunky and average, and otherwise never has approached that kind of performance. Porta Fortuna beat Ramatuelle by a nose in the 1000 Guineas, but baseline to baseline, Ramatuelle’s the better horse. For some reason, because she need not be forward, Ramatuelle raced right on the pace in the Guineas, a very strong pace, indeed, that cooked everyone near it except her. Guineas winner Elmalka rallied from last, Porta Fortuna from midpack. The effort Ramatuelle put forth that day might have told on her next out in the Coronation Stakes, her only flat race this year, and not a bad one. That theory works with the Prix de la Foret added for context. Her Foret marks the best single performance this year from any Mile runner, and if Ramatuelle – a handy, nimble, athletic filly with an electric burst – coped with soft ground over the vast Longchamp course, she should love a fast, turning mile at Del Mar. Filly and Mare Turf The Saturday race least likely, other than the Filly and Mare Sprint, to produce an international winner. Soprano ran into a mighty performance from She Feels Pretty at Keeneland in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup but didn’t exactly hit the line hard in her first start beyond one mile. If she couldn’t handle 3-year-old fillies over nine furlongs then, how can she contend with older rivals over 11 furlongs now? Even accounting for her dislike of soft ground, Content comes to this nowhere near as qualified as the best horses her trainer has sent to the Filly and Mare Turf, horses like Tuesday, who won in 2022, and Warm Heart, second last year. Content, you say, won the Yorkshire Oaks, where Tuesday finished second. Well, Tuesday lost to Alpinista, who’d go on to win the Arc. Content, meanwhile, ground out a win over far lesser opposition, racing by herself much closer to the York stands than the rest of that eight-runner field, perhaps finding better ground there. She’ll find this difficult to win. Turf Sprint While Big Evs won the 2023 Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita, he’ll draw less attention than Bradsell, the best sprinter in Europe this year. Bradsell probably would bring a 4-for-4 record this year if not for a very soft course last out at Longchamp that blunted his brilliance. Bradsell possesses excellent speed and will race prominently Saturday, and he excels at five furlongs. However, a dozen starts and 2 1/2 years into his career, he never has raced around a turn. Horses are creatures of habit, and the tight Del Mar course could ambush this 4-year-old, who has a particularly European kind of stride, one that might not work as well in an American sprint. Speaking of speed, what happened to Big Evs’s strong early lick in the Nunthorpe? He can bounce back but will find post 11 a challenge with pace rivals drawn inside and outside him. Believing races with a totally different style, lacking gate speed but progressing steadily through her races and nearly always finishing strong. She runs in a very unusual manner, her head held low and cocked, but has proven effective under a wide range of circumstances, including a 3-for-3 record on left-handed courses. At a longer price, she might have a better chance at a top-three placing than the other Euros, Starlust appearing a cut below Filly and Mare Sprint/Dirt Mile One couldn’t dismiss the Dirt Mile chances of T O Saint Denis with complete confidence given his surprisingly strong 30-1 performance this past May at Churchill, but then his three other starts since December produced 13th-place finishes. If nothing else – and probably there’s nothing else – he brings early speed. And as for the pair of England-based runners in the Filly and Mare Sprint, Frost At Dawn and Pandora’s Gift, we wish them well. Distaff Alice Verite, in truth, has reached only a Grade 3 level in Japan, that on turf, and has a grass pedigree, not dirt. She’s a shot in the dark, but Awesome Result has a real shot, and not just because she’s unbeaten in seven starts. Focusing on the last three, the filly, by Justify, has displayed versatility, good positional pace, and, seemingly, true talent. In February, she blew the break and raced nearer the back of the field than the front, moving boldly while very wide with no cover on the far turn while still beating a dozen males, albeit of less-than-scintillating quality. In May, going around three turns at Kawasaki, she broke on top, led, and repelled a challenge from Grand Bridge, galloping out like she had plenty in the tank. Grand Bridge came back to win a Grade 2 on dirt last month. And in the most recent outing, in August, Awesome Result showcased a third running style, settling in the bridle just behind the speed before swooping to the lead and winning easily over a horse who came back with an October victory of her own. Listed as “sloppy” the racing surface looked nothing like a sloppy American track that many horses fail to handle and can make a winner look better than she is. Awesome Result just might be good enough. Sprint Don Frankie at his best can contend, but like all the top American contenders in the Sprint he wants to lead, and he won’t beat Americans at their own game. Meta Max races from well off the pace but has no experience abroad or with top-level competition. Remake, though, is a horse of a different color, chestnut, literally, but a true Sprint contender. He’s the most likely horse to capitalize on a pace meltdown that feels nearly inevitable, and his closing kick not only has traveled well to Korea and Saudi Arabia, but Remake has shown the ability to close in different ways. In Korea, with a long homestretch, Remake twice has won their big international sprint with a sustained move propelling him to the lead in the final half-furlong. Question the competition there, but in Saudi Arabia, Remake ran down fellow Sprint entrant Skelly – and that was Skelly at the peak of his powers, not the somewhat diminished version since. The Riyadh homestretch also extends well beyond the distance Remake gets to work with at Del Mar homestretch, but in races like the 2023 Cluster Cup, where he smashed Don Frankie, Remake has unleashed a dazzling move in upper stretch and hit the front well before the line. He does not show his best over the Meydan surface in Dubai, but if Remake has some California style, watch out. One last international contender on a Breeders’ Cup Saturday packed with them. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.