As if any proof was needed that the Breeders’ Cup is now the undisputed near-term focus of the sport, consider that the sharp folks at the Wynn Las Vegas Race and Sports Book released not one but two sets of updated odds last week for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Before taking a peek at Wynn’s latest, remember that its odds are a blend of action already taken and exposure it is willing to accept and are not entirely comparable to a conventional morning line. Wynn’s current narrow favorite for the Classic at 9-2 is Accelerate, the winner this year of the Santa Anita Handicap, the Gold Cup at Santa Anita, and the Pacific Classic. West Coast, last year’s champion 3-year-old male, who is on his way back after getting a long vacation following his second-place finishes in the Pegasus World Cup and Dubai World Cup early this year, is right behind at 5-1. The only other horse listed at single-digit odds is Whitney winner Diversify at 6-1. Eight other horses are posted at 15-1 or lower. At 10-1 are Catholic Boy, the winner of the Travers in his return to dirt racing; Collected, the runner-up in last year’s Classic, who is also working right along after a long break; Thunder Snow, the winner of the Dubai World Cup; and Yoshida, another who went from turf to dirt at Saratoga and won the Woodward. Hofburg, the winner of the Curlin and third in the Belmont Stakes, is listed at 12-1. So are McKinzie, who missed the Triple Crown due to injury but was once the top 3-year-old in Bob Baffert’s barn until Justify came along, and Pavel, the winner of the Stephen Foster Handicap. Gunnevera, second in the Woodward in his second start off a layoff, rounds out the top 11 at 15-1. Horses whose Wynn current odds for the Classic are higher understandably have greater perceived flaws. But one who jumps out at me as a distinct overlay at 45-1 is Gronkowski. Granted, Gronkowski didn’t run a jump most recently when a soundly beaten eighth in the Travers, but his late kick was compromised that day by a moderate pace and a track that was kind to speed. Gronkowski’s second-place finish in the Belmont Stakes in his U.S. debut was still a big effort considering it came going 1 1/2 miles off a two-plus-month layoff and into a slow pace. In addition, Gronkowski finished almost two lengths ahead of Hofburg in the Belmont, yet he is almost four times the current price of Hofburg. Saturday notes: • Yes, Oscar Performance controlled yet another very slow early pace in his Woodbine Mile victory, just as he had done in three or four of his previous stakes wins. And to get the money, Oscar Performance had to turn back the previously unheralded Mr Havercamp, who only recently gained his first unrestricted stakes victory and failed to hit the board in his two stakes attempts in the U.S. But the book some horseplayers and handicappers have on Oscar Performance won’t mean a thing when the story of his career is written. Oscar Performance was a Grade 1 stakes winner at 2, having won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita. He was a two-time Grade 1 stakes winner last year at 3, landing the Belmont Derby in New York and the Secretariat in Chicago. And he’s now a Grade 1 winner at 4. Throw in Oscar Performance’s three career Grade 3 stakes scores, and you have a pretty strong résumé, good fortune be damned. • That was a smart ride by Flavien Prat on Californiagoldrush in the Sands Point at Belmont. The pace of the Sands Point was very slow even allowing for the “off” nature of the turf, and Prat moving Californiagoldrush up early on the backstretch to be right on that walking pace was a big contributing factor in her half-length decision. • Some sharp folks on social media have recently lobbied for tighter and uniform protocols for when horses break through the gate before the start, and I have come around to their way of thinking. You can never really know what happens to a horse when he breaks through the gate before the start. Even the most innocuous incident could result in something like a concussion, which is tough enough to diagnose in humans and figures to be exponentially more difficult to spot in horses since they can’t exactly tell you how many fingers you’re holding up. And beyond the physical considerations, which are critical, when a horse breaks through the gate before the start, it is also extremely likely that horse’s best performance has been compromised, even if he doesn’t run off for an eighth of a mile. And that is unfair to the betting public. This comes to mind after what happened with Pink Lloyd in the Bold Venture Stakes, which was the third leg in Woodbine’s all-stakes pick-four sequence Saturday that began with the Woodbine Mile. Pink Lloyd, who was heavily favored on the basis of 16 wins from 19 career starts, all on the same synthetic Woodbine main track he was racing on in the Bold Venture, broke through the gate before the start and dumped his rider. I don’t know exactly how far Pink Lloyd ran off because the Woodbine track feed didn’t show it, but Pink Lloyd was quickly rounded up and reloaded. You could tell early in the Bold Venture that Pink Lloyd was in trouble, and you knew for sure late on the far turn that he was getting nothing. Whether Pink Lloyd would have won had he not broken through the gate is complete guesswork. But what we do know is that after breaking through the gate, he wound up finishing a soundly beaten fifth. It was only the second time in 20 career starts and the first time in 23 months that Pink Lloyd finished worse than third. Did bettors get a fair shot with Pink Lloyd on Saturday? Any answer would also include a degree of guesswork. But with tighter and more uniform protocols for such situations in place, the question might never have to be asked. • It’s tempting to go overboard with Serengeti Empress after she won the Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs by 19 1/2 lengths, which came on the heels of her 13 1/2-length score in the Ellis Park Debutante last month. But let’s not forget a couple of things here. As big as Serengeti Empress’s Pocahontas Stakes win was, her time was slower than what Cairo Cat posted in winning the Iroquois the race before. And the Iroquois didn’t feel like that impressive a race. It received a Beyer Speed Figure of only 80, two points higher than the Pocahontas. Let’s also not forget that Serengeti Empress finished a weary and distant fourth in the Schuylerville at Saratoga, and that big win margins like the ones she has since run up are often more a reflection of the quality (or lack thereof) of the fields she has beaten. • That was a beautiful tribute to the late John Asher by Churchill Downs prior to the Iroquois. I had the privilege of working with John for many years on the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, and I tell you that everything you have heard and read about John after his untimely passing being the greatest guy around is all true. John had the ability to make everyone he came in contact with feel better about themselves – a rare ability indeed.