Silent Ride

- Admission to the Breeders' Cup will be limited to 45,000 according to Monmouth's GM Bob Kulina.

Kulina said about 2,500 tickets remain for Oct. 27...

"People can still get a good seat if they go to breederscup.com," Kulina said. "There are still $100 seats. For $200, you can still get on the finish line seats. You can get some great seats.

Kulina also said about 30,000 tickets have been sold for Oct. 26. [Asbury Park Press]

You may also find some tickets here.

- Breederscup.com's Ed Gray has a totally different take on the Dirt Mile than I espoused in my prior post.

Finally, the greatest milers in North America are no longer Breeders' Cup outcasts whose connections had [to] choose among the Sprint, (turf) Mile or Classic if they wanted to take part in the World Championships, knowing full well that they didn't have a chance of winning any one of the three. Had the Dirt Mile been run in 1991, In Excess would likely have become a Breeders' Cup champion, instead of settling for ninth over the Churchill Downs turf course due to trainer Bruce Jackson's opinion that his handicap star had less chance of prevailing victorious at 1-1/4 miles on dirt than a mile on turf. [Breeders Cup]

That's certainly a reasonable point of view. But I think that the Classic is called the Classic and is run for the biggest purse in America for a reason. Its mile and a quarter distance is one that only a relative few are able to negotiate at this level of competition. Thus, it attracts only the most special horses in training, and that's the way it should be. The Dirt Mile (and Seventy Yards) comes across to me, at least this year, as merely a consolation race for those who can't quite make the cut. Of course, if Discreet Cat puts on a spectacular show, I'll admit that I'm wrong (though I'll first probably ask why he couldn't have done it at a mile on the turf). But barring that occurrence, which I personally will be betting against, this just doesn't come across as a World Championship race to me.

- Johnny Murtaugh picks up the ride on Dylan Thomas who, according to the UK's Sportinglife.com, is an even money chance with Ladbrokes for the Breeders' Cup Turf.

The race-fixing trial of Dylan Thomas' regular rider Kieren Fallon continues, and the emphasis of late has been not on one of his rides on a horse, but rather, one in a car. The prosecution places Fallon in a car in May, 2004 with professional gambler Miles Rodgers, the alleged ringleader of the alleged scheme (it's all alleged, OK?), despite the fact that police surveillance apparently missed actually witnessing Fallon getting into it.

However, jockey Darryll Holland testified for the prosecution that Fallon was in the car, the only (alleged) known instance of the two men being together. A taxi that was due to take Holland and Fallon to the airport didn't arrive. "Then I looked round and Kieren said, 'we've got a lift'."

There was virtually no dialogue during the journey, Holland said.
.....
"Normally when you get into a car, you're introduced to the people in it. I thought it was a bit strange, but nobody spoke to me so I didn't speak to them." [Guardian]

Holland testified that upon arriving at the airport, Fallon stayed behind and spoke to two men briefly before joining him. When asked if he got the impression that Fallon knew the men, Holland replied:

"I couldn't say 100%.....But you're told from an early age not to get into a car with strangers, so I presume that he knew them."