2007 Breeders' Cup Classic
| Breeders' Cup Classic | |
Curlin at the 2007 Breeders' Cup
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| Location | Monmouth Park |
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| Date | October 27, 2007 |
| Winning horse | Curlin |
| Jockey | Robby Albarado |
| Trainer | Steven Asmussen |
| Owner | Stonestreet Stable |
| Conditions | Sloppy (sealed) |
| Surface | Dirt |
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The 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic (in full, the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge, due to sponsorship) was the 24th running of the Breeders' Cup Classic, part of the 2007 Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships program. It was run on October 27, 2007 at Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport, New Jersey.
In a closely contested year in which the Triple Crown series was split among three different horses, Curlin emerged as the best horse of his generation with a decisive win.
The Classic is run on dirt at one mile and one-quarter (approximately 2000 m) with a purse of $5,000,000. It is run under weight-for-age conditions, with entrants carrying the following weights:
Carl Nafzger, the trainer of favorite Street Sense, knew the race would be difficult for bettors to figure out. "This is one of the best fields that could be put together," he said. "They’ve got everything you want – early speed, tactical speed, closers, and soundness. They’ve been beat and they’ve beat each other. There is class scattered all the way through the field. I've never really ran against this size field with this type of quality all the way through. They’ve all proved it with different styles. It’s a great Classic."
The older horse division had been weakened by the injury and subsequent retirement of Invasor, the defending Classic winner and Horse of the Year. Of the remaining older horses, the most highly regarded was Lawyer Ron, who had set a track record that summer at Saratoga when winning the Whitney and followed up with a win in the Woodward and a second to Curlin in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He was made the morning-line favorite at odds of 5-2 but drifted at racetime to nearly 4-1. Lawyer Ron raced best when he came from off the pace, but was sometimes rank at the start of races. He was not helped by drawing the inside post position.
In the highly talented three-year-old division, Street Sense was the slight favorite based on his wins in the Kentucky Derby and Travers Stakes. However, he had lost to Curlin in the Preakness and to Hard Spun in the Kentucky Cup Classic, his last race before the Breeders' Cup. Curlin had won the Preakness and Jockey Club Gold Cup, but had been beaten by Street Sense and Hard Spun in the Derby, and by Any Given Saturday and Hard Spun in the Haskell. Hard Spun's sole Grade I win had come in the King's Bishop Stakes, a sprint race, and his front-running style made his stamina a question mark.
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