ESPN Horse Racing

Updated: September 22, 2009, 4:39 PM ET

Let it rain in Paris

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By Paul Moran
Special to ESPN.com
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The autumn weather in Paris is often wet and the ground at Longchamp less than firm. At the moment, a typically damp October is critical to making the 26th Breeders' Cup something more than a weekend at Santa Anita without Rachel Alexandra.

The decision to stage consecutive runnings of the Breeders' Cup on the artificial surface at Santa Anita is without question the worst in the history of the event. The setting and weather work. The quirky, controversial material underfoot is the problem and principal owner Jess Jackson's aversion to what he calls racing on, "plastic," has removed Rachel Alexandra, presumptive American Horse of the Year, from the prospective Breeders' Cup cast until 2010, when the event will be held at Churchill Downs, where the track is made of dirt.

If Jackson's decision flies in the face of everything that the Breeders' Cup is intended to provide -- a definitive championship-determining stage for international competition among the best horses of every season -- it is also perfectly understandable, particularly in light of the European domination of the 2008 running, which revealed to the world that Santa Anita is a place with two turf courses but no suitable dirt surface. The term definitive no longer applies to racing in California.

It was apparent a year ago when the polymer settled where there should have been dust at Santa Anita that that Breeders' Cup had delivered a shot to its own foot with the 2009 commitment to return to suburban Los Angeles. In light of the European domination of the 2008 Cup, punctuated by Raven's Pass' Classic victory over another European, Henrythenavigator, it is certain that the foreign ranks at Santa Anita will swell exponentially in November.

Unless it rains in Paris in early October, the 26th Breeders' Cup will be left without an established star, a void most glaring in the Classic.

The event's promoters will mass behind Zenyatta but her return is muted by timing and circumstance.

The anticipated attempt by the 5-year-old mare to conclude an undefeated career build almost exclusively at the expense of overmatched competition on the artificial surfaces of Southern California with a return to the Ladies Classic, formerly the Distaff, the two-day format that segregates the Breeders' Cup races by gender will see that race run on Friday with most of the nation's racing fans -- the television audience -- at work. In a year during which females have dominated American racing, that lost Friday will also likely see the best American fillies and mares not named Zenyatta -- Forever Together, Music Note, Careless Jewel, Icon Project and Ventura -- compete at Santa Anita. In the second year of what was originally a controversial and not widely accepted realignment, it is also obviously time to rethink that ill-conceived move.

Notwithstanding her unblemished record Zenyatta's profile has been lowered in the face at her connections' decision to remain on the familiar synthetic path of least resistance while Rachel Alexandra has raced this year at seven tracks thrice been sent against males, most recently older males in the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga. Absent the 3-year-old filly who has established that she is, on dirt, the best American thoroughbred of either sex and any age, the appeal of this Breeders' Cup rests with Europeans, first with Goldikova's return to defend her title earned at the expense of males in the Mile and, more significantly, the potential presence of the superstar 3-year-old Sea the Stars in the Classic.

If the weather in Paris is dry in early October, Sea the Stars, who is based in Ireland with trainer John Oxx, will carry rider Mick Kinane into the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. He is, however, a huge, deep-girth colt unsuited to soft ground and such conditions at Longchamp will send him to California, where he will undoubtedly be heavily favored to win what amounts to the second Classic run on black turf.

Sea the Stars, who is owned by Christopher Tsui, a 27-year-old Hong Kong night club impresario, is almost unknown in this country. He has, however, won five Group 1 races in Europe at distances from 8 to 12 furlongs including two classics, the 2000 Guineas and English Derby, the prestigious Coral Eclipse Stakes and Juddmonte International, a race in which he set a course record at York. He is rated as the best horse in the world by Timeform, which puts him at a level reserved for the best European runners of the last 60 years. European bookmakers have set his opening odds in the 12-furlong Arc at between 4-5 and even money.

Since it is unlikely that Sea the Stars will race at four, should fair autumn weather prevail in Paris he will be retired after the Arc without having had the opportunity to race before an American audience or to save this Breeders' Cup Classic from being totally meaningless.

Paul Moran is a two-time winner of the Media Eclipse Award, and has received various honors from the National Association of Newspaper Editors, Society of Silurians, Long Island Press Club and Long Island Veterinary Medical Association. He has also been given the Red Smith Award for his coverage of the Kentucky Derby. Paul maintains paulmoranattheraces.blogspot.com and can be contacted at paulmoran47@hotmail.com.