BREEDERS’ CUP : 124 Pre-Entries Break Record

There may be a horse shortage, but the 11th Breeders’ Cup will not reflect it. When pre-entries were announced Wednesday, a record 124 horses were made eligible for the seven races at Churchill Downs a week from Saturday.

The turnout broke the Breeders’ Cup record of 116 set in 1991, when the races were last run at Churchill Downs. There was such a stampede to compete this year that six of the races were oversubscribed, which has resulted in also-eligible lists of horses that can run only if there are defections from the 14-horse fields.

With 14 horses likely to run in six races and 11 fillies and mares pre-entered in the Distaff, the record will probably be broken for number of starters. The most horses that ran in a Breeders’ Cup has been 92--six short of capacity--at Gulfstream Park in 1992.

Helping break the pre-entry record were the European horse owners, who paid preliminary fees ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to make 31 horses eligible. Five of those horses, despite limited or no experience running on dirt, will be in the richest race of the $10-million day, the $3-million Classic. Pre-entry and entry fees cost 2% of each race’s total purse, and the second payment is due when entries are drawn Wednesday.

It cost considerably more for six others to run, as their owners supplemented horses not nominated. That was the most since there were eight supplementaries in 1985. It’s costing Bertrando and Best Pal $360,000 apiece to run in the Classic, and $120,000 is being paid per horse for Cherokee Run, Exclusive Praline and Soviet Problem in the Sprint and for Post It in the Juvenile Fillies.

Holy Bull, the horse Breeders’ Cup officials would have most liked to see supplemented, will spend the day in his barn at Gulfstream Park. Holy Bull, who could become the first horse-of-the-year champion not to run in the Breeders’ Cup since Criminal Type in 1990, wasn’t made eligible via a $500 payment the year he was foaled, and his owner-trainer, Jimmy Croll, declined to pay the $360,000 supplement for the Classic. Holy Bull’s victory in the Woodward at Belmont Park last month was his eighth in 10 starts this year.

“There’s no question that we’ll miss Holy Bull,” said D.G. Van Clief Jr., executive director of the Breeders’ Cup. “But there’s hardly been a year where we haven’t missed some important horse. We’ve lost a star, but the Breeders’ Cup is not a one-race event, and we’re fortunate that we have star quality across the board in all the races to make up for it.”

European horses have been beating one another all year, and Tony Morris, the British journalist, has not been enthralled by what he has seen of the English group. “I would not wager as much as a $2 bill on any of the mooted contenders from Britain,” Morris wrote last week, “because the likelihood is that none of them is going to be good enough.”

The Arcangues Factor, cited by Van Clief, is probably the biggest reason for the sizable European pre-entry. A year ago, the 5-year-old French-raced horse with a chronic back problem entered the Classic with two victories in two years. Arcangues overhauled Bertrando in the stretch, won by two lengths and paid $269.20 for $2, a Breeders’ Cup record. After Arcangues, the Europeans are saying, anything is possible.

Andre Fabre, who trained Arcangues, is back with another Classic contender in Dernier Empereur, who ran last at Santa Anita last year in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. The 1 1/4-mile Classic is more suited than the 1 1/2-mile Turf for a horse with Dernier Empereur’s staying power, and the 4-year-old son of Arc de Triomphe winner Trempolino will make his dirt debut at Churchill Downs after wearing down Grand Lodge by a nose in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, England, on Oct. 15.

Grand Lodge is also expected to run in the Classic, along with Europeans Ezzoud, Flag Down and Millkom. Ezzoud, who has earned $1.1 million, was seventh at Santa Anita a year ago in his only start on dirt, and Flag Down tried the main track for the first time this month when he was third, behind Colonial Affair and Devil His Due, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.

Horse Racing Notes

Lakeway will miss the Distaff because of a lung infection. . . . Birdonthewire, winless in six starts this year, still got into the Sprint while four California horses--Saratoga Gambler, Concept Win, D’Hallevant and Uncaged Fury--won’t run unless there are defections among the 14 who qualified. . . . Joe Burnham, 73, an Eclipse Award-winning cinematographer and film historian, died Monday at Arcadia Methodist Hospital. Burnham suffered a stroke on Oct. 16. Burnham, who lived in Sierra Madre, requested that there be no services.