Flightline, After Soaring in Del Mar, Now Huge Breeders’ Cup Classic Favorite (VIDEO)

It’s totally understandable if you missed it on Saturday, presumption it was the for the first time total hebdomad of college football, but Flightline’s carrying out in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar was i for the ages. And a warm statement forrader of the Breeders’ Cup.

The gently raced 4-year-old colt astonished a bunch of more than 12,000 at the Southern Calif. caterpillar tread with a 19-1/4-length triumph inwards the Grade 1 stakes race. You owe it to yourself to check how Flightline and Flavien Prat blew the theater off inwards the $1 one thousand thousand 1-1/4-mile race.

You see, it’s non that he won past nearly 20 lengths or fifty-fifty just missed breaking the 19-year-old caterpillar tread book at that distance. It’s what the Gospel According to John Sadler-trained gymnastic horse encountered and overcame to dominate. Flightline got squeezed on both sides just after they skint from the starting gate, and as they made the first turn, the colt and Prat ran substantially wide-cut of the rail. There are times inwards racing when simply ace of those occurrences tin derail a horse’s chance of winning.

Not Flightline, though. He gave upward the head simply once, but he quickly recovered. And midway through the backstretch, Prat just now let the horse go, and from that point, it was a rush for s place. Flightline could hold heights stepped same Deion Sanders cut down the stretching and still won by 10 lengths.

“This Equus caballus has a heights cruising speed,” Sadler said after the romp. “Once he was flowing, I knew we were inwards honest shape. We had a lot of confidence going in.”

‘An Exceptional Horse’

The Pacific Classic was just now Flightline’s fifth race and also the first for him at 1-1/4 miles. Sadler admitted after the run that at that place were some questions virtually whether his colt could hold the distance.

But the trainer also thought his gymnastic horse would follow capable to overlook the likes of he did, too.

Did i imagine he could fare that – win ilk that? Kinda yeah,” Sadler said. “You don’t need to say it inwards look of the race, but at present that he’s through it….The thing about him is that he’s tight and he can buoy extend it. Some horses are fast, but they can’t go game on. This gymnastic horse can. He’s an exceptional horse.”

Next upwards for Flightline is likely the Breeders’ Cup Classic, another 1-1/4-mile race, at Keeneland inwards Lexington, KY, on Nov. 5.

4-5 Odds inward Breeders’ Cup Futures Pool

On Monday, pari-mutuel wagering concluded for the arcsecond Breeders’ Cup Classic futures pool, and bettors flocked to Flightline. Of the $437,147 wagered o'er the holiday weekend, $203,420 went on him to pee him the commanding favourite inward the pool, which featured 23 horses and field accounting entry for other potentiality entrants.

When the betting window closed in(p) at 6:30 pm ET, Flightline’s betting odds were 4-5. Next on the get on was Epicenter, the Steve Asmussen-trained 3-year-old unused sour an telling public presentation in the Aug. 27 Travers Stakes at Saratoga, at 7-1.

Right in arrears Epicenter were 2 more 4-year-olds. Life is Good, trained by Sir Alexander Robertus Todd Pletcher and a victor in 8 of 10 starts, is at 8-1. So, too, was Olympiad. The Bill Mott-trained colt has VI wins inward VII starts this year, including a two-length triumph o'er Americanrevolution in the Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday.

That win non only when came a month after a dissatisfactory fourth-place outcome in the Mount Whitney Stakes at Saratoga, but it also gave Olympiad a guaranteed discern inward the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“It’s gratifying to ascertain him add up back,” Lucretia Coffin Mott said. “The [performance] the other daytime was almost too defective to follow dead on target considering the cast he had been inwards the previous cinque races.”

Bettors took a keen stake in Olympiad in the final hours of futures wagering. At 2 pm, he was at 23-1.

Those 4 horses are the only if ones with single-digit odds. Bob Baffert’s Taiba is next at 33-1, followed by another Baffert horse, Country Grammer, who ran 2d to Flightline Saturday. Country Grammer finished VII lengths forwards of third localize finisher Royal Ship.

“I opine he thinks he won the race,” Baffert said after the Pacific Ocean Classic.