Sports

101 ENTERED FOR RACING’S BIGGEST DAY

The Breeders’ Cup is bullet proof. With marquee names like Mineshaft and Empire Maker skipping the Classic, and the nation’s top 2-year-olds bugging out of the Juvenile, next Saturday’s 20th running of the World Thoroughbred Championships at Santa Anita – eight turbo-charged races worth $14 million in purses – threatened to be anti-climactic.

But when pre-entries were announced yesterday, the “World Series of racing” came up gangbusters, a five-hour showdown for year-end honors on the Left Coast. A total of 101 horses were named to run in Breeders’ Cup XX, with final entries to be taken and post positions drawn Wednesday. NBC will televise all eight races live (1-6 p.m. EDT).

Horse of the Year is at stake in the $4 million, mile-and-a-quarter Classic, which lured a standout field that includes Funny Cide, who gets a charismatic new rider in Julie Krone; Travers winner Ten Most Wanted; Perfect Drift, who owns a victory over Mineshaft; and top-class veterans Medaglia d’Oro and Congaree.

Throw in last year’s Classic winner Volponi, hard-hitters like Pleasantly Perfect, Evening Attire, Hold That Tiger, Dynever and possibly Falbrav, and the Classic shapes up as a tour-de-force.

Defending Horse of the Year Azeri also was pre-entered in the Classic, but the 5-year-old mare is cross-entered in the Breeders’ Cup opener, the $2 million Distaff (to be run as the second race on the card at Santa Anita), where she is certain to mount a title defense.

Besides Azeri and Volponi, another of last year’s Breeders’ Cup winners is looking to repeat, Ireland’s High Chaparral, in the $2 million Turf at a mile-and-a-half.

What the mile-and-a-sixteenth Juvenile, whose purse was boosted by $500,000 this year to $1.5 million, lacks in quality, it makes up for with quantity, as an overflow field of 15 was pre-entered. Cuvee, the only Grade 1 winner in the field, is the vulnerable favorite trying two turns for the first time.

Halfbridled, runaway winner of her three starts, will be the heaviest favorite of the day in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies, at a mile-and-a-sixteenth.