Despite what veteran trainer John Gosden referred to as "a bit of a nightmare year," he and other international participants are well represented at this year's Breeders' Cup against the backdrop of the biggest global pandemic in the event's 37-year history.
The 39 international horses pre-entered, according to Breeders' Cup, is down from 47 last year but represents an increase from the 32 the only other year Keeneland hosted the event, in 2015.
"It's not the Breeders' Cup without the international competition," said Breeders' Cup vice president of racing and nominations Joshua Christian. He credited cooperation at the federal, state, and local levels with helping make this year's event happen with its usual worldwide presence—an effort participants have noticed.
"Everyone's gone out of their way to make it feasible for us," Gosden said. "I've been most impressed with the protocols put in place and how helpful everyone's been. And it's not easy."
For example, with no fans allowed in attendance, anyone at Keeneland will have a health screening before being granted entry, under protocols announced by Breeders' Cup.
Even with the protocols, the goal always is to make participants "feel like part of the family," Christian said.
Christian credited the strong international presence this year to several factors, with two of the biggest being a travel exemption for participants and the Breeders' Cup maintaining its purse levels.
First, participants in major sporting events have a Department of Homeland Security exemption that allows the horses' connections to enter the United States, Christian said, and "luckily" the Breeders' Cup fits under that exemption. Participants are coming with negative COVID-19 tests and may have to quarantine when they return home, he said, but they can come to Lexington.
Second, the Breeders' Cup purses are at normal levels, whereas, in the wake of COVID-19, purse cuts were widespread for major races overseas.
"They're willing to come here for the money," Christian said.
Even in normal years, Christian said international recruiting "always takes a lot of hand holding." He said he spent three weeks abroad between September and October, as opposed to the normal three or four months. Questions he said he addressed included whether the event would even take place and then whether connections could attend.
The work of the Breeders' Cup is paying off as a number of European-based trainers are making their first Breeders' Cup starts: Frederic Rossi, John Quinn, Michael Bell, James Fanshawe, and Nigel Tinkler.
By contrast, Gosden is a Breeders' Cup veteran. This will be his 24th year with a starter, including the inaugural event in 1984 at Hollywood Park (when he was based in Southern California). He has three horses pre-entered in four races this year and said it's important to continue to support the event.
"I've been a passionate believer in it, obviously, since we started at Hollywood Park," Gosden said in a Breeders' Cup teleconference when pre-entries were announced. "We ran out of programs, and we ran out of food. But it was a great day and phenomenal racing."
Gosden, who won't be making the trip this year, accepts that big crowds and running out of programs aren't this year's concerns. He said his staff was tested for COVID-19 before boarding the plane to the United States, traveling separately from the horses, and reuniting with them at Keeneland.
"And I'm sure there'll be a lot of protocols there on the ground," Gosden said, joking that not all of the protocols are bad from a trainer's perspective. "I know that jockeys aren't allowed into the barn, so that'll stop Mr. (Frankie) Dettori from trying to train them all from in the barn. We'll have to meet him outside. But, look, we are living in this strange world now, and we just have to get on with it."
The horses may be the least disrupted.
"The horse side was a lot easier" than the logistics of the humans, Christian said, with the travel of the equines being "the same thing we've always done."
It will be the end to an eventful year.
"You know, a lot of us were getting horses ready in the spring, and then there was no late-March, April, May racing," Gosden said. "None of that took place."
When racing resumed, no fans were present, but European racing managed to get many of its big races completed.
"We got the racing done," Gosden said. "The horses sort of enjoyed it because they had no distractions with bands and noise."
The delays, both domestic and international, had the effect of benefiting this year's Breeders' Cup, Christian said. "I think we have fresher horses this year than in past years."
Gosden and trainer Aidan O'Brien also said by now they're used to some travel and racing under COVID-19 protocols.
"Obviously, it has been difficult," O'Brien said. "In some jurisdictions, the lads had to go a couple of weeks before the horses and all that kind of stuff. And I suppose we weren't able to travel ourselves that much because of restrictions here. The policy here is when you come back (to Ireland), you have to go into two weeks' quarantine, so obviously it stopped us from going racing a lot."
But the Breeders' Cup is an international testing ground for horses' connections to know where they stand, O'Brien said, even as COVID-19 surges in Europe and the United States.
"Obviously, everybody has to be careful and very respectful of each other's space and have their own space," he said. "And that's the most important thing, that everybody stays healthy. … It is important that the standard of the Breeders' Cup is kept up."
