In the days leading up to the 37th Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, usracing.com will profile the horses in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic (Saturday, Nov. 7).
By Ed McNamara
November 2, 2019: Vino Rosso, ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr., wins the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic on Breeders’ Cup World Championship Saturday at Santa Anita Park on November 2, 2019: in Arcadia, California. Kaz Ishida/Eclipse Sportswire/CSM
This son of Curlin and grandson of A.P. Indy, both Classic winners, has the best distance DNA in the field, and he comes in off a career Beyer top. So why will he be double-digit odds? (He’s 20-1 on the morning-line.) Because Global Campaign never has faced a field this good, and his three best races came on or near the pace.
That’s how he won last time in the 1 1/4-mile Woodward, in which he led throughout in soft fractions against underachiever Tacitus and three second-raters. No way he’ll be able to do that against Bob Baffert’s speedy pair of Authentic and Maximum Security.
“I think he’s a very talented horse,” trainer Stanley Hough said. “I think he’s coming to where he could really show it. I think he belongs in a race like this. He’s got the pedigree to do it.”
His best-case scenario would be to repeat his tactics in last year’s 1 1/8-mile Peter Pan, in which he sat second and beat subsequent Belmont Stakes hero Sir Winston. If he can’t, he’ll be in trouble, because even if somehow Global Campaign wins a pace duel, he’ll have to hold off the late kicks of Tiz the Law and Improbable. That’s hard to imagine.
“I think he’s got a pretty good pace to him, and it helps for him to go this far,” Hough said. “I think his best race is 1 1/4 and getting a good position. Now he’s just got to outrun these others.”
Not impossible, but an awful lot to ask. Stranger things have happened in the Classic, but I think Global Campaign would’ve fit much better in the Dirt Mile.
Odds: 20-1
Post position: 7
Jockey: Javier Castellano
Trainer: Stanley Hough
Owner: Sagamore Farm, WinStar Farm
Career record: 9-6-0-1
Career earnings: $781,080
Top Equibase speed figure: 109
Pedigree: Curlin-Globe Trot, by A.P. Indy
Color: Bay
Running style: Tactical speed
Notes: Chronic foot problems disrupted Global Campaign’s 3-year-old season, in which he was 3-for-4 before being laid off in August following a third-place finish in the Jim Dandy. “No hoof, no horse,” said Hough, who didn’t run him again until April 25 at Gulfstream … Global Campaign’s name is a play off his mother’s (Globe Trot) … The likeable, articulate Hough, 72, retired in 2012 and took six years off before returning to train for Maryland-based Sagamore Farm. The Woodward was his first Grade 1 victory since 2004. He has 2,212 wins in a career that began at age 21 in 1969.
Breeders’ Cup Odds
| 1 | Tacitus | Jose Ortiz | 20-1 |
| 2 | Tiz the Law | Manuel Franco | 3-1 |
| 3 | By My Standards | Gabriel Saez | 10-1 |
| 4 | Tom’s d’Etat | Joel Rosario | 6-1 |
| 5 | Title Ready | Corey Lanerie | 30-1 |
| 6 | Higher Power | Flavien Prat | 20-1 |
| 7 | Global Campaign | Javier Castellano | 20-1 |
| 8 | Improbable | Irad Ortiz Jr | 5-2 |
| 9 | Authentic | John Velazquez | 6-1 |
| 10 | Maximum Security | Luis Saez | 7-2 |
Ed McNamara is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about thoroughbred racing for 35 years. He has handicapped races for ESPN.com, Newsday and The Record of New Jersey. He is the author of “Cajun Racing: From the Bush Tracks to the Triple Crown” and co-author of “The Most Glorious Crown,” a chronicle of the first 12 Triple Crown champions.