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POST PARADE SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 A unique championship showdown by Vance Hanson Barring unforeseen developments, the three-year-old male championship will be decided in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on November 1. The results of the 1 1/4-mile Classic have decided this Eclipse Award before. Think Sunday Silence over Easy Goer in 1989 and Tiznow over Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000. In 2007, three horses entered the Classic with legitimate championship credentials. Curlin prevailed in the Monmouth Park slop over Street Sense and Hard Spun that day. The 2014 Classic has the potential to go one better with four (!) major contenders for the title: Bayern, California Chrome, Shared Belief, and Tonalist. And unlike the aforementioned runnings, there doesn't appear to be an older horse in sight capable of mucking up the outcome. It will be a situation nearly all racing fans have never witnessed before. Unless, that is, you were around and consciously aware on November 9, 1957. On that clear Saturday afternoon, a crowd of more than 39,000 descended on Garden State Park to watch Bold Ruler, *Gallant Man, and Round Table square off for the three-year-old title in the $82,350 Trenton Handicap over 1 1/4 miles. With leading older horse Dedicate withheld due to lameness and two unimportant older horses scratched due to the improbability of earning more than a modest fourth-place check, the deck was cleared for a three-horse showdown. Bold Ruler entered the Trenton with eight stakes wins on the year, including the Preakness and two wins against older horses in the Vosburgh Handicap and Queens County Handicap. Gallant Man's five stakes wins included the Belmont and two scores against older rivals in the Nassau County Handicap and Jockey Club Gold Cup. The California-based Round Table was going for his 11th stakes win of the season and having beaten his elders in the Hollywood Gold Cup, United Nations Handicap and Hawthorne Gold Cup. The three were hardly strangers. Bold Ruler had defeated Gallant Man twice early in the year, in the Bahamas and Wood Memorial, but subsequently finished behind that rival in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, and Woodward. In the Kentucky Derby, Round Table finished ahead of Bold Ruler but behind Gallant Man, to whom he had also lost in the Hibiscus to start the year. With Gallant Man holding a head-to-head lead over the other two, the 124-pound co-highweight was favored at 7-5. The betting market was tight, however, with Bold Ruler starting at 8-5 while toting 122 pounds, and co-highweight Round Table a tick higher at 17-10. Unfortunately, there wasn't much drama to the Trenton. Contested over a track labeled good, Bold Ruler shot out to a clear lead and set sensible fractions of :23 3/5, :47 1/5, and 1:11 1/5. Up eight lengths after six furlongs and 3 1/2 lengths after a mile in 1:36 4/5, Bold Ruler "...willingly responded to hand pressure and, being occasionally 'shown' the whip through the final three-sixteenths, continued strongly to the end," according to the Daily Racing Form trackman. Bold Ruler sealed the championship with a 2 1/4-length victory over Gallant Man in a time of 2:01 3/5. Round Table was 8 1/2 lengths farther back. We can all hope the Breeders' Cup Classic won't prove to be such an anti-climax. Nearly five weeks out, however, it seems likely that Shared Belief will be a strong favorite, perhaps an odds-on choice. The undefeated gelding, who missed the Triple Crown due to lingering foot issues, has reeled off consecutive wins in the Los Alamitos Derby, Pacific Classic, and Awesome Again. If he were to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, Shared Belief will have won more stakes open to older horses than any three-year-old male champion since Secretariat swept the Marlboro Cup, Man o' War and Canadian International in 1973. Only Buckpasser, Damascus, Arts and Letters, and Key to the Mint can lay claim to the same feat in the last half-century. California Chrome, clearly ahead in the title chase after sweeping the first two legs of the Triple Crown, has seen his stock tumble in the past couple of months. Not only has Shared Belief's rise taken the shine off California Chrome, but his sub-par sixth in the Pennsylvania Derby suggests he will have to improve dramatically to win on Breeders' Cup day. Bayern and Tonalist are longer shots but theoretically still in the hunt for the title. Bayern obviously had everything his own way in his blowout victories in the Haskell Invitational and Pennsylvania Derby, but who's to say the spirit of Bold Ruler will not shine brightly on Bayern as he tries to take them all the way over 10 furlongs? Remember, folks, this is Santa Anita. Tonalist, who won the Belmont and Peter Pan in the spring, kept his championship hopes alive with an impressive tally in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. East Coast-based runners have historically found it difficult reproducing their best form in California, but Tonalist is a true 1 1/4-mile horse and is arguably going better at the moment than all save Shared Belief. This race will be unique in the annals of American championship racing. No matter the outcome, savor it and enjoy.
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