BREEDERS´ CUP in Santa Anita

this year´s Breeders´ Cup takes place on Friday and Saturday of this week in Santa Anita in Los Angeles, California. Once again the main interest will be the performance of the top European runners against the best Americans, but an additional factor is added this year by the fact that the "dirt" races will be run on a new surface, Pro-Ride, which was installed this summer and is quite similar to the all-weather surfaces in Europe. In theory this might gve an advantage to the European runners, who may be more familiar with this surface, which is new territory for many of the U.S. runners. However the weather, reported as very hot with temperatures of over 30 C, may be to the disadvantage of horses travelling over from the much cooler European climate. There are a couple of new races this time, and an added innovation is that all the races for fillies and mares will be run on Friday evening, where the racing starts quite late - the first B.C. race is at 21.35 CET.