There’s more than a whiff of Jamie Vardys on Mick Appleby. Both were born in Yorkshire, both have a high success rate in their chosen professions, and just as no profile of the Leicester forward was ever complete without a nod to his non-league roots, Appleby is still well known to many racers . fans from his breakthrough seasons as the “King of the Sand.”
However, on Sunday morning he may have earned a new title: the king of the first class of sprinters. Big Evs, Appleby’s first runner and first winner of the Breeders’ Cup when he took the Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita 12 months ago, is back in Southern California on Saturday night for an appearance at the Turf Sprint at Del Mar. And, quite remarkably, Appleby has found another lightning-fast juvenile, Big Mojo, who will try to win again in the Juvenile Turf Sprint on Friday.
Both Big Evs and Big Mojo race in the colors of Paul and Rachael Teasdale, who paid a relatively modest 50,000gns (£52,500) for Big Evs before reinvesting 175,000gns (£183,750) of his £620,000 2023 earnings into Big Mojo.
Many thousands of two-year-olds are bred every year. When the hammer fell, the odds that Big Mojo would follow in Big Ev’s footsteps at the Breeders’ Cup twelve months later were enormous. But Appleby and his new owners saw something in Big Mojo that they were determined to have.
“We liked everything about him,” Paul Teasdale said Thursday. “He was the standout horse for us at that auction. There was a lot of offer, but we stuck our neck out and said: look, we have it. It was one of those days where we weren’t going to be defeated.”
A few years earlier, Teasdale also saw something he liked in Appleby. “We did some research, we wanted a garden that was big enough to be professional, but not so big that it wasn’t really personal,” he says. “Mick and his team have very happy horses and that contributes greatly to its success. A lot of people have said to Mick, you’ve come from this to this. I think if you have the quality and class that Mick and the team have, you will end up here, at the Breeders’ Cup, with the right ammunition.”
The Juvenile Turf Sprint is the first race of the meeting, and also one of the deepest and most competitive, with British bookmakers struggling to find a favorite to say the least.
It also brings together many of the storylines for the weekend as a whole, as Aidan O’Brien, who saddles City Of Troy in the Classic on Saturday, has two leading contenders in Whistlejacket and Ides Of March, the latter of which is about to be ridden. by Frankie Dettori prior to his big shot at Emily Upjohn in Saturday’s Turf.
The horse who could prove to be Big Mojo’s biggest rival, meanwhile, is Ecoro Sieg, one of about a dozen likely competitors at this year’s meeting from Japan. With starters in nine of the fourteen races, it feels like a statement of intent from the well-resourced and ever-strengthening Japanese racing industry, and the squad includes City Of Troy challenger Forever Young and local hope Fierceness in the Classic.
The Breeders’ Cup is often described as racing’s version of the Ryder Cup, pitting the best Europeans against the cream of American racing. But this year’s meeting promises to be a truly global event Ecoro Sieg (9:45 p.m.) seems to have an excellent chance to literally kick-start the Japanese weekend.
He broke a 22-year-old track record at Nakayama in September by a whopping 0.6 seconds, taking 0.3 seconds off Japan’s all-time record of six furlong for a youngster in the process. And that was after I had been a little slow walking.
In other words, Ecoro Sieg is potentially something unique, and while a draw in box eight isn’t ideal, anything close to his level of form from last time could be enough.
Short manual Friday tips from Greg Wood
Show
Uttoxeter 12.20 Lookaway 12.55 Irish Choir 1.25 Railway Bell 2.00 Diamond Dealer 2.35 Chankaya 3.10 Crystal Glance 3.45 Song Of Earth 4.22 River Rider
Nieuwmarkt 12.35 Magnetite 1.08 Marching Mac 1.43 Magic Mild 2.17 Montezuma 2.52 Claxton Bay 3.27 Swatch 4.02 On The River
Wetherby 12.45 Kart D’Estruval 1.15 Cadell 1.50 Luckie Seven 2.25 Liam Swagger 3.00 Galop De Chasse (nb) 3.35 Queens Venture 4.10 Romancier
Newcastle 2.30 Humble Spark 3.05 Kaleidoscope Eyes 3.40 Fastnet Jenkins 4.15 Dimsons 4.45 Calafrio 5.15 Commander Of Life 5.45 Bobby Joe Leg (nap) 6.15 Patontheback 6.45 Clotherholme
O’Brien is two wins away from sharing the all-time record for Breeders’ Cup victories and the heavy favorite More Victoria (11:05 p.m) could provide one in the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf.
There is a strong European contingent in the youth area, including New Century, Aomori City and Al Qudra, but Zulu Kingdom (12.25 pm) who stood out last time at Aqueduct, is a live runner for the home team. Oostlaan (11.45 pm)owned by the American branch of the Godolphin operation, and another Japanese-trained runner, American bikini (10.25pm)with Ryan Moore booked to drive are also fair bets against the likely odds in the Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies respectively.