The 41st Breeders’ Cup Thoroughbred World Championships take place Friday and Saturday from Del Mar, California. The two-day, 14-race event starts with Future Stars Friday, which features five juvenile (two-year-old) races. On Saturday, the Breeders’ Cup will showcase nine more races across different surfaces and divisions, including the $7 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic.
City of Troy was made the 5-2 morning-line favorite in a full field of 14 for the Classic and drew the No. 3 post at Monday’s draw. The colt is trained by Aidan O’Brien and will have Ryan Moore as his ride. Fierceness, trained by Todd Pletcher and John Velazquez, was the second choice at 3-1 and will break from the No. 9 post.
Post time for Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic is 5:41 p.m. ET and will be televised on NBC.
The contenders
1. Forever Young (6-1): One of three Japanese horses competing in Saturday’s Classic, Forever Young finished third in the Kentucky Derby, despite nothing going his way out of the gate. He is 6-1 in his career, winning in Japan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He has had the summer off to prepare for the Breeders’ Cup and reports are he’s in great form.
3. City of Troy (5-2): The son of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify has won six of his seven starts and comes in as the favorite. This is hands down the most dominant horse in Europe. The only concern is that all of his wins have come on turf, and this will be his first race on dirt. His dam was dominant on grass, so no one knows quite how City of Troy will perform on this surface.
7. Ushba Tesoro (12-1:) Another of the Japanese horses, Ushba Tesoro has raced 35 times with a record of 11-4-5 and over $16 million in earnings. He is great at this 1 1/4-mile distance — bred for it, actually. This is a very high energy horse that is ready to go.
8. Pyrenees (30-1): Pyreness is my favorite long shot. The four-year-old son of Into Mischief had won four straight races before finishing second in his last two. He has proven he can race with the big boys.
9. Fierceness (3-1): Won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year, as well as the Jim Dandy and Travers this season. He is coming out of Post 9, which means he is going to have to work early and cover more ground. Fierceness is 0-3 when not in the lead down the stretch, and with the speed in this race, that is a concern.
12. Arthur’s Ride (15-1): Son of legendary sire Tapit, this horse has the speed to dominate and has had two months off to rest up for the Breeders Cup’ Classic. He dominated the Whitney Stakes, and his trainer, William Mott, has dominated on this track, winning 15 Breeders’ Cup races. Arthur’s Ride can set the tone early, but the concern is if he will tire at this distance.
Going to the window
Among the notable betting options are:
Win: Picking the winning horse; Place: Picking a horse to finish first or second; Show: Picking a horse to finish first, second or third; Exacta: Picking the top two horses in the exact order; Trifecta: Picking the top three horses in the exact order; Box: In wagers such as exactas and trifectas, covering all permutations of the picked horses.
Anita’s plays
Win or place: 7. Ushba Tesoro Exacta Box: 1-7-8 (a $1 Exacta Box with three horses would cost $12) Trifecta Box: 1-3-7-8-9-12 (A $1 Trifecta Box with six horses would cost $120)
Did you know?
Courtesy of Chip Tuttle
The Breeders’ Cup has emerged as a global event, attracting more international participation than any other racing event in North America. That is true this year more than ever, with a record number of international participants and international wagering.
Horses from five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa) will be represented during the Breeders’ Cup.
Australia will also be represented by jockey Rachel King, who is British, but lives and rides in Australia.
A strong contingent from Europe is again headed to the Breeders’ Cup, headed by City of Troy, one of the highest-rated horses in the world, who will try to win the first Breeders’ Cup Classic for Irish racing powerhouse Coolmore.
Japan will send 19 horses to compete in 11 Breeders’ Cup races. Both will be records. In 2023, when Japan had eight horses across five races, handle from Japan was more than $19.1 million. Japanese bettors are only allowed to wager on a handful of Breeders’ Cup races with Japanese horses in them.
The last time the Breeders’ Cup was at Del Mar, in 2021, the Japanese won their first two Breeders’ Cup races — Marche Lorraine in the Distaff and Loves Only You in the Filly & Mare Turf.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Cam Ward made NCAA history in his final college game.
The Miami Hurricanes quarterback threw a record-setting 156th touchdown pass of his college career Saturday, connecting with Jacolby George for a 4-yard score with 4:12 left in the first quarter of the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
That’s the Division I — FBS and FCS — record, one more than Houston‘s Case Keenum threw from 2007 through 2011.
Ward finished with three touchdown passes in the first half, pushing his total to 158. Emory Williams started the second half for Miami.
Ward might not hold the record for long. Oregon‘s Dillon Gabriel — whose team could play as many as three games in the College Football Playoff — has 153 touchdown passes so far in his career, spanning six seasons at UCF, Oklahoma and now Oregon.
Either way, Ward is assured of finishing college with one of the top careers by any quarterback at any level.
He entered Saturday with 17,999 yards — 6,908 at Incarnate Word, 6,968 at Washington State and 4,123 at Miami — for the third-most in NCAA history behind only Keenum (19,217) and Gabriel (18,423).
And when it’s all done, Ward will be on the touchdown list for a while as well.
The all-division NCAA record is 162 touchdown passes by John Matocha from Division II’s Colorado School of Mines from 2019 through 2023.
Tyson Bagent of Division II’s Shepherd threw for 159 touchdowns from 2018 through 2022. Braxton Plunk of Division III’s Mount Union threw for 158 from 2019 through 2023; North Central’s Luke Lehnen, whose team will play in the Division III national championship game next month, also has 158 in his career.
And now Ward has 158, as well.
Ward rewrote Miami’s record book in 2024, his lone season with the Hurricanes. He will leave as Miami’s single-season leader in yards, completions and touchdown passes. He was on pace entering Saturday to leave as the Hurricanes’ leader in completion percentage — for a season (65.8%, set in 2023 by Tyler Van Dyke) and for a career (64.3% by D’Eriq King in 2020 and 2021).
College Football Senior Writer for ESPN. Insider for College Gameday.
UConn football coach Jim Mora has agreed to a new contract that includes two additional years that will take him through the 2028 season, the school announced Saturday.
The deal includes a raise to an average of $2.5 million annually over the course of the deal. He made $1.81 million in base salary in 2024, and the new deal will increase that base to $2.1 million in 2025.
Mora’s deal comes after he revived UConn football in his first three years at the school. He took over a program that went 1-11 in the year before his arrival and has led it to two bowl games in three years.
That includes an 8-4 regular season in 2024, which earned UConn a spot in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl against North Carolina on Saturday.
“Three years ago, I tasked Jim Mora with the challenge of leading our football team back to success and through his experience, energy and leadership he has done just that,” UConn athletic director David Benedict said in a statement. “He has taken our program to post season bowl games twice and just guided our team to one of the best seasons in UConn football history, building a momentum to keep this program moving forward. I look forward to his leadership of our football team in the years ahead.”
If Mora leads UConn to a win over North Carolina, it will mark the Huskies’ first nine-win season since 2007 and just the third nine-win season in school history. UConn went to the Myrtle Beach Bowl in Mora’s first year in 2022, the school’s first bowl game since Bob Diaco led the Huskies to the St. Petersburg Bowl in 2015.
Mora is a veteran coach who had two stints in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks. He is in his ninth season as a college head coach, as he took the UCLA job in 2012 and had a successful stint there that included a pair of 10-win seasons. UCLA hasn’t won 10 games in a season since Mora left.
He mentioned at the Fenway Bowl news conference Friday that UConn went undefeated against Group of 5 teams this season, with its losses against Maryland, Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse.
The 8-0 record against teams outside the power leagues, Mora noted, made UConn one of three Group of 5 teams to go undefeated against Group of 5 competition. He said that was a sign of UConn’s growth as a program.
“For this program, we want to start not just competing with but beating Power 4 teams,” Mora said, “and making the statement that we are becoming very relevant again on the football field.”
College football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.
Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, who underwent surgery earlier this week to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right, throwing elbow, declared for the 2025 NFL draft Saturday.
In a social media post, Beck thanked his Georgia teammates and coaches, calling his time with the program “an incredible journey” and writing that he will be around to support the Bulldogs during their College Football Playoff run, which begins Wednesday against No. 7 seed Notre Dame in a quarterfinal matchup at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Beck injured his elbow on the final play of the first half against Texas in the SEC championship game Dec. 7. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed Beck’s surgery Monday in Los Angeles. Beck is expected to make a full recovery, according to the school, and he will resume throwing in the spring.
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound quarterback is in his fifth year at Georgia, but he had another year of eligibility because of the COVID year in 2020 and appeared in only three games in 2021.
Beck, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, went 24-3 as Georgia’s starter the past two seasons. He entered the fall as one of the top NFL prospects at quarterback. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. listed Beck and Colorado‘s Shedeur Sanders as the top quarterbacks for the 2025 draft entering the season. Kiper’s latest Big Board lists Beck as the No. 4 draft-eligible quarterback prospect, behind Sanders, Miami‘s Cam Ward and Alabama‘s Jalen Milroe.
Beck did not match his 2023 numbers this fall but still finished with 3,485 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, 11 of which he threw during a five-game midseason stretch. He had 7,426 passing yards and 52 touchdowns over the past two seasons for Georgia, and he was a two-time finalist for the Manning Award and was a second-team All-SEC selection in 2023.
Redshirt sophomore Gunner Stockton replaced Beck in the SEC title game, which Georgia won 22-19 in overtime, and will start against Notre Dame.