The 2025 re­new­al of the Breed­ers’ Cup will take place for the sec­ond suc­ces­sive year, where the surf meets the turf, at Del Mar. As in all pri­or years, it promis­es to be two of the best days of horse rac­ing seen any­where in the world.

Since its in­cep­tion, ri­vals have emerged in Dubai, Eu­rope, Sau­di Ara­bia, Hong Kong, and Aus­tralia, but none are quite able to cap­ture the full imag­i­na­tion the way the Breed­ers’ Cup can. An in­trigu­ing as­pect of this year’s event is that it will like­ly host a race that will chal­lenge for the so­bri­quet of best race in the world in 2025.

Sat­ur­day - Breed­ers’ Cup Clas­sic – 1 mile 2 fur­longs (Dirt)

Af­ter barn­storm­ing races such as the Prix de l’Arc de Tri­om­phe and the Qip­co Cham­pi­on Stakes staked their claims to be­ing con­sid­ered the best race in the world (based on Time­form av­er­age rat­ings of par­tic­i­pants), the Breed­ers’ Cup Clas­sic threat­ens to eclipse them both.

This year’s re­new­al fea­tures a fas­ci­nat­ing re­match of the top three fin­ish­ers from the 2024 Clas­sic (all mem­bers of the 2024 three-year-old gen­er­a­tion) and the top three three-year-olds of the 2025 gen­er­a­tion who have mo­nop­o­lised this year’s Triple Crown.

The old­er gen­er­a­tion is rep­re­sent­ed by the four best old­er dirt males in the world: Sier­ra Leone (2024 Breed­ers’ Cup Clas­sic win­ner and 2025 Whit­ney win­ner), Fierce­ness (2024 Tra­vers Stakes win­ner and 2025 Pa­cif­ic Clas­sic win­ner), For­ev­er Young (3rd in the 2024 Ken­tucky Der­by and Breed­ers’ Cup, 2025 Sau­di Cup win­ner), and Mind­frame (run­ner-up in the 2024 Bel­mont and Haskell Stakes and 2025 Stephen Fos­ter win­ner). Just those four alone would make for a com­pelling con­test.

​How­ev­er, they are joined by the best of the 2025 class, in­clud­ing the win­ners of the three Triple Crown races. Sov­er­eign­ty, the undis­put­ed cham­pi­on of the 2025 class, has swept all be­fore him with ma­jes­tic wins in the Ken­tucky Der­by, Bel­mont Stakes, and Tra­vers. Jour­nal­ism has been run­ner-up to Sov­er­eign­ty in the Der­by and Bel­mont but took ad­van­tage of his ri­val’s ab­sence from the Preak­ness to run out an im­pres­sive win­ner. Baeza was third in the Der­by and run­ner-up be­hind ei­ther Jour­nal­ism or Sov­er­eign­ty in the oth­er lead­ing three-year-old races be­fore his break­out Group 1 win in the Penn­syl­va­nia Der­by in the ab­sence of the top two.

The three-year-old class is com­plet­ed by the light­ly raced Neva­da Beach, who missed all the lead­ing races but ad­ver­tised his own claims in the Good­wood Stakes (Group 1) when de­feat­ing 2024 Breed­ers’ Cup Mile win­ner, Full Ser­ra­no.

Sov­er­eign­ty’s style sug­gests that he can lay up with any pace a la Fierce­ness and Mind­frame but still out­kick closers a la Sier­ra Leone. The tac­tics will be crit­i­cal and the in­clu­sion by the con­nec­tions of Sier­ra Leone of a pace­mak­er could make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence to the out­come. The fin­ish­ing pow­er of Sier­ra Leone re­minds me of the great Easy Go­er and I will keep the faith that he could be­come the sec­ond horse to re­peat in the Clas­sic af­ter Tiznow.

Sat­ur­day - Breed­ers Cup Turf -

1 mile 4 fur­longs (Turf)

An­oth­er fas­ci­nat­ing event but not one like­ly to gen­er­ate the same av­er­age rat­ings as the Clas­sic. In truth, there are on­ly a hand­ful of top-class turf run­ners in this event and al­most all of them come from Eu­rope.

Lead­ing the charge for Eu­rope, sen­ti­ment aside, has to be the Prix de l’Arc run­ner-up Min­nie Hauk. This daugh­ter of Frankel has swept all be­fore her in 2025 un­til nar­row­ly de­nied vic­to­ry in the Arc by the top-class French colt, Daryz. Even a re­peat of that run should see her as a very com­fort­able win­ner of the Turf. Pri­or to the Arc, Min­nie Hauk swept the Oaks in the UK and Ire­land with wins in the Ep­som, Irish and York­shire ver­sions.

Sen­ti­men­tal­ists, how­ev­er, will side with Rebel’s Ro­mance, an in­ter­na­tion­al su­per­star who has nev­er quite been in the same league as the elite class in the UK and Ire­land. Rebel’s Ro­mance is a two-time win­ner of the Turf (2022 and 2024) and an un­prece­dent­ed third win will see him join a very ex­clu­sive class (I can on­ly think of the great Miesque com­plet­ing a hat trick). He isn’t in that league.

The oth­er no­table con­tender would be the 2024 King George VI and Queen Eliz­a­beth Di­a­mond Stakes win­ner, Go­liath. This geld­ing has not been as im­pres­sive in 2025 but did re­turn to some form when win­ning the Gross­er Preis von Baden in Ger­many on his last start. Al­though trained by a ris­ing mae­stro in France’s Fran­cis-Hen­ri Graf­fard (train­er of the afore­men­tioned Daryz and 2025 Cham­pi­on Stakes win­ner Ca­landa­gan), he will have to sur­pass any­thing he has done pre­vi­ous­ly to suc­ceed (though he should have the mea­sure of Rebel’s Ro­mance on Eu­ro­pean form). The oth­ers have had their lim­i­ta­tions ex­posed on many oc­ca­sions and as such, Min­nie Hauk is a con­fi­dent se­lec­tion to win.

Sat­ur­day - Breed­ers’ Cup Distaff – 1 mile 2 fur­longs (Dirt)

His­tor­i­cal­ly one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed races of the week­end, the 2025 edi­tion looks a pale re­flec­tion of its pri­or glo­ries. Many of the top distaffs of 2024 did not re­cap­ture their glo­ry, most no­tably the 2024 one-two, who have both now been re­tired. The prin­ci­pal races lead­ing in­to the Distaff have been won by out­siders to a large de­gree, which means a very open con­test is ex­pect­ed. It might even be ripe for one of the many Japan­ese pre-en­tries to emerge to the fore.

It is hard to say who are the best of the Amer­i­cans with one hav­ing to choose from Ni­tro­gen (a turf star who tran­si­tioned to the dirt with an im­pres­sive win in the Al­aba­ma be­fore hav­ing no ex­cus­es when beat­en in the Spin­ster), Gin Gin (the up­set win­ner of the Spin­ster who had not dis­played that lev­el of form pre­vi­ous­ly al­beit show­ing that she was a good fil­ly), Seis­mic Beau­ty (a light­ly raced fil­ly who has im­proved dra­mat­i­cal­ly in 2025 with im­pres­sive wins in the San­ta Mar­gari­ta and Clement Hirsch in her last two starts) and pos­si­ble Dorth Vad­er who was run­ner up to 2024 “Horse of the Year” Thor­pe­do An­na in the 2025 Per­son­al En­sign.

The Japan­ese con­tenders Al­ice Verite and Argine are com­plete­ly un­known, though the for­mer was 4th in the 2024 Distaff. In a very open con­test, I will side with the home court ad­van­tage of Seis­mic Beau­ty.