Breeders' Cup championship day, with its eight races for $13-million in purses, has provided Thoroughbred racing with something the sport dearly needed, a year-end championship, complete with 4 1/2 hours of live television coverage on a national network.

At the same time, it has put every major stakes from mid-June through mid-October in the position of being a Breeders' Cup prep.

Revamps of the national racing calendar have accompanied the changes in status. "The Breeders' Cup has realigned stakes schedules at tracks pretty much throughout the whole of North America," said Howard L. Battle, Keeneland Race Course's racing secretary.

"Most late-summer and fall events nowadays seem to be scheduled in three- or four-week blocks," Battle said. "Years ago, the Spinster Stakes (G1) was run on closing day of Keeneland's fall meet. Now, it's run earlier in the session. This accommodates horses being pointed toward the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1)."

In California, the Yellow Ribbon Stakes (G1) has been an anchoring point for the Oak Tree Racing Association's meeting at Santa Anita Park for more than two decades. The 1997 and '98 Yellow Ribbon winners, Ryafan and Fiji (GB) respectively, were North America's female turf champions for those seasons.

Historically, the Yellow Ribbon was an early-November fixture. But with the advent of the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1) in 1999, it now has been moved to early October. In essence, the Yellow Ribbon is a Breeders' Cup prep.

Competition encouraged

There are benefits to this. It is no longer possible to win a championship by consistently avoiding competitors from the far coast and points in between.

There also are drawbacks. Not every horse is headed for the Breeders' Cup, and not every horse is eligible for the Breeders' Cup. But stakes schedules more and more are being designed for horses that will run in the championship-day races.

"Look at the New York Racing Association's Breeders' Cup preview day," said Battle. "You've got four Grade 1 stakes-the Champagne, Frizette, Beldame, and Jockey Club Gold Cup (Stakes)-on the same Belmont Park card. It's exactly three weeks before the Breeders' Cup. And in mid-September, four weeks earlier, you've got Belmont's 'Super Saturday' card, with the Woodward (Stakes [G1]) and the Ruffian (Handicap [G1]). All of these used to be separate entities, spread over the whole of what was considered to be a championship meet."

Decades ago, the Pimlico Special was the mid-autumn target for handicap competitors. Challedon twice used the Pimlico Special as a season-ending finale to wrap up Horse of the Year titles. Twilight Tear, Capot, and Tom Fool used the race to seal up championships as well.

After its 1958 running, the Maryland Jockey Club put the Pimlico Special on the shelf. The race was revived in 1988 but as a springtime event, run in proximity to the Preakness Stakes (G1). The Pimlico Special Handicap now has attained Grade 1 status.

Whereas, the Pimlico Special was once a major event that closed out the championship season, it now helps to open it. The reasons are simple. First, the crowded national racing calendar had an open spot in May; second, there is no sense trying to compete for horses with the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1).

Many races are gone

Some historic events seem to have gone totally down the tubes, most prominently the Washington, D.C., International (G1), a Laurel Park fixture from 1952 through '94. During the 20 years immediately preceding the Breeders' Cup, ten International winners were honored as North America's turf champions. There is an undeniable tie between the International's demise and the Breeders' Cup ascension.

Indeed, other Maryland races have taken a huge sock on the chin from the Breeders' Cup. Remember how important the Laurel Futurity used to be to the juvenile male division? Count Fleet, Citation, Crimson Satan, Riva Ridge, Secretariat, Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, and Devil's Bag all won Laurel Futurities at or near the culminations of their two-year-old champion campaigns.

Since the advent of the Breeders' Cup, the Laurel Futurity (which dates back to 1921) has been shortened, lengthened, put on the turf, and lowered from Grade 1 to its present day Grade 3 stature. The last divisional champion to as much as run in the race was Devil's Bag in 1983, one year before the first Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1). Meanwhile, 12 of the last 16 two-year-old male champions on these shores have been Breeders' Cup Juvenile winners. This is not a coincidence.

In 1983, Hollywood Park's fall stakes schedule was one of the most prominent on the continent, a fine mixture of graded events that extended from the meeting's opening weekend in mid-November to its finale on Christmas Eve. The following season, Hollywood cut the ribbon on $100-million worth of physical improvements and hosted the inaugural Breeders' Cup. Twice in the ensuing years, the Breeders' Cup has returned to Hollywood.

Otherwise, its fall-meet races have lost their importance in the end-of-season voting. While the Hollywood Futurity (G1) once had championship implications, it now is $200,000 race, down from $1-million in the early 1980s, that means nothing to the juvenile male title.

This is not the fault of Hollywood officials. Rather, it is an inevitable result of the Breeders' Cup success. There are precedents in other sports. The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) was once the apex of season-ending tournaments in college basketball. During the 1950s, however, aggressive movements began to strengthen the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament.

The NCAA's tournament is now one of the foremost sporting events annually staged in North America. It receives extraordinary television coverage; its Final Four ranks with baseball's World Series in prominence. The NIT has become third-rate. Analogies are never exact, but there are certain parallels between the NIT's decline and the Breeders' Cup's effect on stakes schedules.

New races created

At the same time, new events have been created. Kentucky Cup day, inaugurated at Turfway Park in 1994, offered six stakes this year, four of them graded, for aggregate purses of $1,146,500. From its inception, the Kentucky Cup program was designed to be a group of mid- to late-September Breeders' Cup preps, and it has been rather successful as such.

A few examples. Boston Harbor won the 1996 Kentucky Cup Juvenile Stakes (G3), won Keeneland's Breeders' Futurity (G2) three weekends later, and went from there to win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Woodbine racetrack. Reraise went straight from his 12-length triumph in the 1998 Kentucky Cup Sprint Stakes (G2) to win the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Churchill Downs. Cat Thief did not win the 1999 Kentucky Cup Classic Handicap (G2) (he finished third) but went directly from that race to win the Breeders' Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park.

Stakes schedules, of course, are ever-changing, ever-evolving entities. Lots of factors can figure in. New York's fall schedule has been affected in recent years not only by the Breeders' Cup but also by the expansion of the Saratoga Race Course meeting from four to six weeks. The Spinaway (G1) and Hopeful (G1) Stakes are still run on Saratoga's closing weekend. But that is now during Labor Day period, not the fourth weekend in August.

Increasingly, roads are being redesigned and rebuilt to lead to the Breeders' Cup. And if a championship is being sought, there are not many opportunities left to avoid those roads. When Chinook Pass was named North America's sprint champion for 1983, he never left the West Coast, winning four stakes in Southern California and culminating his season with a six-length triumph in the Longacres Mile (G2). Conversely, when the filly Gold Beauty was crowned sprint champion for 1982, she never left the East Co