Turfani is finally getting a race, tomorrow in Lyon. She’s off tonight on the overnight transport, and if she handles the traveling and doesn’t have too many traffic problems in the 20-horse field, she has a shot to win. She is in great form and I think the soft going will suit her. She hasn’t raced since winning in Chantilly in September because she came back quite sore from racing on too-fast ground there. She’s been ready to go for about a month now, but I’ve had trouble finding the right entry. I think the Lyon race should suit her well.

Tyke and Pixie are entered in Deauville on Thursday, but the annual follies have begun and I’m pretty sure neither will get the chance to go.  There were 241 horses entered for 48 slots, and about 25 of those entries hold a priority from being previously eliminated. Tyke might just squeak in at the bottom of the third division, but Pixie is almost definitely out. This gives her priority for the next entry, but there will probably be about 50 horses eliminated, so everyone will be in the same boat next time. The Deauville winter season is so oversubscribed that France Galop now assigns double- and triple priority. It is all more than ridiculous and you end up finally running races you’d rather not, because you can’t get into anything else. Sigh.

I know it’s long after the fact, but I’m finally getting around to offering a review of  the Breeders’ Cup. I was there for all the races, and first off, there are way too many of them. While the Breeders’ Cup is the best attempt yet at a “world championship” for thoroughbreds, do we really need a Juvenile Fillies Turf division? And I’ll just say this early and only once, since anyone reading this has heard me say it so many times before: There can be no “world championship” of thoroughbred racing with medication allowed. The playing field is not even. The American horses run with this stuff all the time, and the Europeans feel the need to shoot up, too, so they can compete under the same circumstances. The biggest disappointment of the Breeders’ Cup for me was Freddy Head’s decision to run Goldikova on lasix “because everyone else is on it.” Everyone else was on it last year, too, but she won without it. That decision tells me he was more upset than he let on about the filly’s defeat in her prep race, the Prix le Foret, and he didn’t want to take any chances. The thing is, using a medication on race day that you haven’t used before is a huge risk. Aidan O’Brien, by contrast, who usually uses medication when he runs in America, decided not to this year for all save one of his runners. And the one he used the drugs on won, while the rest were a disappointment. But lasix, as we all know, is NOT a performance enhancer, right?

But enough about drugs. Santa Anita is a beautiful track, as far as it goes – which isn’t very far. A lot of Americans I spoke with were really surprised when I remarked on how tiny the track was. It’s nice and wide but only a mile around, and the turf course inside the main track has a wicked-tight first turn. I was watching at the head of the stretch at that turn when Ahmet Atjebi gunned Gladiatorus to the lead on the outside and then hit the turn. I’m quite certain he had to change his underwear after that race, because he almost didn’t make the curve. The pro-ride surface on the main track looked very inviting, but the turf course was in pretty bad shape, with bald patches in the home stretch. The grandstands are huge – much more imposing than the track itself. Horses leaving the paddock area walk through the crowd to the tunnel to get to the track, which I thought was a nice touch and let a lot of people get a good view of the runners. American tracks are so impressive in their presentation of the race. There were no bad seats, the big screen was great and there was never any danger of getting shut out at the betting windows because they were numerous, all open and very efficient (note to France Galop: Please add enough staff on big days so you can at least let people get a bet in even if you’re not going to sell them anything to eat). And speaking of food – plenty of it and lots of variety, even if the lines for the good stuff got a little long at times. Even though it was a full house it didn’t feel crowded, and the spectators really seemed to be having a great time.

The atmosphere was great, and I’ve never heard a crowd at a track anywhere cheer like this one did for Zenyatta in the Classic. That was one of those sporting moments where you had to be there, and I’m very glad I was. I had never seen the super-mare in person, and she was much more imposing than she looks in her pictures and in the famous Youtube video of her workout. She’s huge, actually, and has quite a personality, too. I think she would have beat Sea the Stars had he made the trip, not necessarily because she’s a better horse (I don’t think she is), but because she knew exactly how to run on that track. After hanging three lengths or more behind the field for the entire race, she made her move on the turn and seemed to catch everyone else sleeping. I would think Sea the Stars would have tried to move in the stretch instead, but the stretch at Santa Anita is way too short for a horse like that to get his run in.

And then there was the Quality Road starting gate incident. Apparently this caused quite a stir, but I didn’t see it as any big deal. The horse decided he wasn’t going, and the gate crew did what they could. I was more impressed than I expected to be with the gate crews. I went down to the gate to watch the loading and start of the Dirt Mile, and it was impressive to see how quickly they can load once they get started. I still think there are way too many people milling around, which can be unsettling for horses, and I still think leaving the starter in the gate with the horse is insane, unnecessary and dangerous. That said, it is really nice that the first horse in doesn’t have to wait ages for the last to come in, like they do sometimes here in France. I understood the decision to pull the horses back out of the gate after Quality Road started to act up, but I don’t understand at all why officials then made all the jockeys dismount. I got the overall impression that the horses are all handled like live sticks of dynamite, chucked from handler to handler because no one wants to be the one stuck with it when it explodes. The problem is, the more you toss it around, the greater the chances of an explosion.

Like everyone, I was relieved there were no fatal accidents. It’s just a shame that the specter of that has to be hanging over racing. Many of the people I spoke with, including horse owners, never stopped to think that always running the same direction around a tight turn at high speeds is dangerous. Add the medication and you have a lethal cocktail. I am 100 percent sure that the fatal accident rate for U.S. racehorses would drop by half if all those two-year-old sprint races were run on a straight line instead of around a tight left-hand turn and if medication were banned – all medication. You can take a track like Longchamp and put down whatever surface you like – dirt, synthetics, grass or even wood chips – and you would have a safer track than anything in America because it is an expansive, well laid-out galloping course with wide sweeping turns – and no drugs are allowed. Now there’s an idea – let’s really make it a World Championship and bring the Breeders’ Cup to Europe. I know it’s been suggested and roundly shot down before,  just like a medication ban. I still have not yet learned that that wall is harder than my head.

Derringbay ran 7th in Lyon yesterday, a result that doesn’t reflect the decent race he ran. He actually started second-favorite in the betting, which is already amazing for a horse that was one step away from a future in the local pony club four months ago. It was a strange race, starting out incredibly fast and then slowing dramatically in the backstretch before the sprint for home. Bay found himself much further back in the field than usual, then moved up sharply when everyone else slowed down on the backstretch, then finished well, beaten just three lengths. There was a photo for 5th, 6th and 7th; we were all in a line, just a neck behind Tarruji, who finished fourth. But behind us was an impeccably bred filly owned by Sheik Mohammed, who sold as a yearling at Keeneland for $750,000 (or $750.000 for my French readers, just to avoid confusion). Derringbay cost 4,200 pounds. I know Sheik Mohammed could probably care less and probably doesn’t even know he owns a filly called Cloudspotter. But after 12 hours in a truck and coming home without the expected check, I’m taking satisfaction where I can get it. By the way, Jenny, Bay does seem to be turning into a decent racehorse after all. Thanks again for falling off so he could show his stuff! Deauville is up next for him in a couple of weeks. As usual, he has completely forgot he even ran a race yesterday, hasn’t lost an ounce and is licking the plate clean. Gotta love an uncomplicated horse in a plain brown wrapper.

I love living in France, and it is one of the best places in the world to train horses. But sometimes the French go out of their way to hassle foreigners in ways you wouldn’t have thought possible. But first – and this has nothing to do with the French – Skid’s race yesterday turned into nothing more than a public workout after the horse next to him in the gate stumbled on the way out, cutting off Skid and leaving him behind a wall of horses galloping down the hill with nowhere to go. It was just one of those 18-runner hard-luck stories that was really nobody’s fault (except the horse who stumbled). Then came the fun part. A friend of mine near Marseilles asked if I could claim a horse for him out of the sixth race if it ran well. I said sure. The two-year-old filly wasn’t much to look at; she was extremely over at the knee, especially on the right side, and her hocks looks like trouble, too, as she walked very stiffly behind. I wouldn’t have given her a second look in the sales ring. But she was another lesson in how horses prove us all wrong, because she won the race in a canter, her third straight victory. My Marseilles friend wanted to buy her, so I put in the bid; she was running for a tag of 17,000 euros and he wanted was ready to offer 24,300. French claimers are run like a silent auction. After the race, you fill out a form with your bid and put it in a box. After 15 minutes, the box is opened and the bids are read out; the highest bid takes the horse. My bid was the highest; the owner/trainer of the horse had put in his own bid to try to keep her, but it was for 22,800. What happened next almost no one can believe. When I filled in the form, I wrote 24,300. Note the comma between the “24″ and the “300″. This is how you would write twenty-four thousand three hundred euros in any other country in the civilized world. But not in France. Oh, no. Here, you must put a period between the thousands and hundreds, not a comma. The owner/trainer saw the bulletin and immediately protested to the stewards. I was called in, and they pointed out the rule saying that if there was any confusion over a claim, the bid would have to be annulled. I pointed out to them that there seemed to be no confusion at all when the clerk who opened the box, who as far as I could tell was very French, read out my bid with no hesitation. I also noted that since the horse was running for a tag of 17,000 euros, I would obviously not put in a bid of 24 euros and…300 cents? There were, after all, five numbers written down. Not even a moron could be confused (although I didn’t say it quite like that – these were the stewards, after all, and it would probably be a bad idea to call them morons to their faces). They said they had been wanting to change the claiming forms for some time to ask people to write their bid in words as well as numbers, like a check, and they urged me to appeal so they could use this case as an excuse for change. I said that I absolutely would not appeal whatever decision they made, so they would have to find their test case somewhere else. I know what happens with France Galop appeals. You always lose and it will end up costing you money. Nonetheless, they annulled the bid, and the horse stayed with her trainer. I apologized profusely to the Marseilles group who were expecting to get a horse, and they took it well. They, too, couldn’t believe the decision. In the end, the filly has bad knees. Maybe the stewards did them a favor. (And if she ends up winning the Prix de Diane next year I think I can start looking for a new place to live…)

I’m just back from my jaunt across America for the Breeders’ Cup and then some Florida vacation time, and I’m digging out of the pile of mail (bills,  mostly, alas) and catching up with how my horses are doing. We had three runners while I was away, and no one distinguished themselves. Blessing Belle finally got to the track, and she didn’t run too badly considering she’s done virtually nothing all year. She finished 8th of 16 after lobbing along all on her own a good three lengths behind everyone else. She came back over-excited but otherwise fine, and should run back again soon. Little Brazilien had a test drive at St. Cloud, but after leading for half the six-furlong race pulled a shoe in front and limped home last. The damage appears superficial and she seems fine now, so I’ll decide over the next week or so whether she will have another try this year or whether she will start her winter break now. Pixie’s Blue also ran at St. Cloud, and ran pretty well but ran out of puff in the last furlong. We will probably try her at something shorter soon, then maybe a race on the fibersand in Deauville. She has been frustratingly disappointing this year, and is most likely to move on to a brood mare career in the spring.

For the moment, all eyes are on Skid, who will take another shot at a Tierce handicap on Thursday at Fontainebleau. He really deserves to win one of these, and if he handles the going, this might be the one. It should be less sticky than in Deauville, so we shall see. I’ve had to change jockeys yet again, but Skid is not an overly complicated horse. Flavien Prat will ride.

Once I shake off the jet lag (and riding three horses tomorrow morning should help that) I’ll write more about my impressions on the Breeders’ Cup (I know all three of you are hanging on the edges of your seats….)