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Meet Big Brown in Breeders Cup, Iavarone tells Curlin's Jackson!
Big Brown plans to run in the Breeders Cup Classic at Santa Anita racecourse, and if 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin's connections want their horse to meet the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, then they ought to meet at the Classic.
This was the response of IEAH Stables co-president Steve Iavarone to the challenge of Curlin's majority owner Jess Jackson that the two classic winners meet either at the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga racecourse or the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park racecourse.
Jackson has said in his statement on August 13 that "..(the Breeders Cup) is not part of my current plan for Curlin. I felt it was the sporting thing to do to announce Curlin's schedule to give fair notice to anyone looking to compete against the reigning horse of the year this fall."
In replying to Jackson 's invitation, Iavarone said: "I've made my plans clear. We want to win the Breeders' Cup Classic. We've always said that's the race we want to win. Curlin is not going in the Classic so his schedule is different than ours."
Iavarone said that if he'd let Big Brown run in the Woodward Stakes on August 30, they would be in a "precarious" precarious position on what to do between that race and the Breeders' Cup.
He added: "The Breeders' Cup is the race to decide the championship, no matter what surface it's on. We have clearly defined where we were going from day one. The disappointing side of it is, there's no reason why Curlin and Big Brown shouldn't be in the Classic, because neither of them have raced on a synthetic surface, so neither of them have run poorly over it."
And so many observers say that unless Jackson lets Curlin compete in the Breeders Cup Classic or the two agree to meet in the Grade II, Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs racecourse on Nov. 28, the public won't be seeing a Curlin-Big Brown clash anytime soon. |
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