While British raider Big Evs won the sixth running of the $1 million Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint for 2-year-olds to kick off Future Stars Friday at the 40th World Championships at Santa Anita, some travellers had less good fortune.
Trained by Michael Appleby and ridden by Tom Marquand, Big Evs covered the 5 furlongs on a firm turf course in :55.31 to earn $520 000. It was the first Breeders’ Cup victory for Appleby and Marquand.
Big Evs and Tom Marquand winning The Juvenile Turf Sprint (Pic – Racing TV)
Earlier on the connections of visitor Givemethebeatboys expressed their shock and dismay at being told their two-year-old had been withdrawn after examination by a panel of local vets on Friday morning, prior to day of the Breeders’ Cup racemeeting.
The sole representative of trainer Jessica Harrington at the 2023 Breeders’ Cup, he was carded to have contested the Juvenile Turf Sprint
Gimmethebeatboys was one of 16 horses withdrawn from Friday’s card, including leading Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf candidate River Tiber for Aidan O’Brien, who was given a double blow when Bolshoi Ballet was scratched from today’s Breeders’ Cup Turf.
“I’m in horses all my life, I own a quarter of him,” said Con Marnane, one of several members of Givemethebeatboys’ ownership team consoling each other in the barn area after the withdrawal. “I’ve had him since he was a foal. I just cannot understand this.”
Marnane and others witnessed the examination which led to the withdrawal, in which Kate Harrington led the horse at a trot over a series of rubber mats and then onto a sandy area.
“The horse was moving like a ballet dancer,” Marnane said. “He should have been in Swan Lake.”
Irene Sands, also part of the ownership team, said: “He’s in incredible condition and we couldn’t have asked for better. As owners, you can only ever ask that they come with their best foot forwards and the Harringtons have done that.
“He has been minded like a baby all week. He was vetted all week and there was no issue. He worked Thursday , we were all here to see and he was in great form. So this is a shock and very disappointing, there’s no point pretending otherwise.
“Jessica Harrington said it very well, she said that, at the end of the day, vets aren’t any different to any other profession, they all have different opinions. That’s not taking anything from anybody but certainly our own contingent would have been very happy for him to race today.”
Con Sands added: “We’ve come a long way and we have a beautiful horse. We worked him Thursday and he seemed pretty good, didn’t seem to have any difficulties and then at eight o’clock this morning we got the bad news that he was ‘slightly lame’. I suppose we just have to cry in our soup.”
Coventry Stakes winner River Tiber was scratched from the Juvenile Turf, less than eight hours before he was due to run.
Ryan Moore had been due to ride the son of Wootton Bassett, but he rode winning stablemate Unquestionable, who was originally due to be ridden by Frankie Dettori.
Exaulted, an outsider for this evening’s Breeders’ Cup Mile, is another high-profile runner to have been scratched.
