Remember those "useless but mildly entertaining info nuggets" I mentioned yesterday? Sit back and enjoy the Kandy Korn of Breeders' Cup pre-entry stats:
Most career starts: Better Talk Now (40), Icy Atlantic (37) and Honey Ryder(32) are the only BC pre-entrants with 30 or more career starts. Next come Prop Me Up (29), Maryfield (27), Cosmonaut(26) and Lawyer Ron(25).
Most career victories: Better Talk Now(14), Honey Ryder (13), English Channel (12), Lawyer Ron (12), Bordonaro (10) and Dylan Thomas (10) are the only pre-entrants with double-digit victories. Note that Pletcher trains the 2-3-4 finishers in this category.
Highest earnings: Dylan Thomas is the richest of 26 millionaires -- nine of them trained by Todd Pletcher -- among the 141 pre-entries. Eight horses have earned $2 milliion or more: Dylan Thomas ($6.5 million), Street Sense ($4.1 million), Better Talk Now ($4.3 million), English Channel ($3.6 million), Lawyer Ron ($2.7 million), Curlin ($2.4 million), Honey Ryder($2.3 million) and Red Rocks($2.1 million). Of the 26 millionaires, 25 are G1 winners -- all but Park Avenue Ball ($1.043 million).
Unbeaten horses: Nashoba's Key (7-7) has the longest streak among the 11 unbeaten pre-entrants. Smarty Deb (4-4) comes next, with La Traviata, Proud Spell, War Pass and Wicked Style all at 3-3.
Highest winning percentage (10 or more starts): Commentator (9-14, .642); Nobiz Like Shobiz (7-11, .636); After Market, Smokey Stover (both 8-13, .615); Any Given Saturday, Lady Joanne (both 6-10, .600); Hard Spun (7-12, .583); Remarkable News 9-16, .563); Dylan Thomas (10-18, .556).
Where they were bred: 85 of the 141 (60 percent) are Kentucky-breds; 23 (16 percent) are foreign-bred, including 16 from Ireland and Great Britain; 19 (14 percent) are Florida-breds; and the other 14 were bred in states other than Kentucky or Florida -- 6 in California, 4 in New York, 2 in New Jersey and one each from Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
Sires: 97 different stallions sired the 141 pre-entrants. Distorted Humor has 7 runners (Any Given Saturday, Austintatious, Commentator, Hystericalady, Izzarra, Your Round, Z Humor), followed by Danehill and Sadler's Wells with 4 European-breds each; and A.P. Indy, Catienus, Forest Wilcat, Giant's Causeway, Johannesburg, Smart Strike, Street Cry and Tiznow with 3 each. Another 16 have two each, including Danzig and Storm Cat.
