Breeders’ Cup Classic 2022: Saturday Odds, Bets You Should Make, And How The Run Of Flightline’s Life Will Look

Not Bothering With That Whole Gravity Thing: Flightline in his final work in preparation for the … [+] 2022 Breeders Cup Classic at Keeneland Race Course on October 29, 2022 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Horsephotos/Getty Images)

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In advance of its running later this afternoon at Keeneland, the 2022 $6-million Breeders’ Cup Classic hasn’t been dissected quite like any other big stakes in the last few decades. That can be chalked up to what we can call the Flightline Effect. There will be the race that Flightline will run, and then, somewhere in the racing hivemind five-to-twenty lengths behind that cometlike run, the race between the other contenders will take place.

We have this picture courtesy of Flightline’s last few performances, chief among them his 19-length romp in early September’s Pacific Classic, courtesy of his silky running style that seems to allow him not to have to touch the ground much, and not least, because of John Sadler’s disciplined Zen-master guidance of this spirited stallion in training. Needless to say, Flightline has been rock steady in his works, drawing crowds to his early-morning works. He’s a rock star. People just want to get close to that white-hot sort of wattage. As they did with Secretariat in the 1970s, which is really the last time we’ve seen a string of dominant wins like Flightline’s.

As expressed even in the crude numerical terms of the morning line, the likelihood of two more or less completely separated races being run is better than good — with Flightline well low in the odds and his rivals orders of magnitude higher. It’s the kind of race where we have to keep reminding ourselves that it remains one race. That does present players with some more than slightly but nevertheless entertainingly contorted options to try to reconcile Flightline on their tickets. Not dealing with Flightline is not much of an option.

But before we get into how the rest of the talented pack will try to bring him down from that pedestal, and what we think will happen as they do, here’s a refresher on the odds, which we’ll update until post time as the windows at Keeneland open and the track money starts to talk. Note: We quote here the British bookmaker William Hill, and will quote others through the day, London odds being among the more discerning out there. As expected, at Hill, Flightline is tremendously low, and his nearest rival many times higher. What that says is that, in the British hivemind, the two races being run at once will be quite distinct.

(Post Position, Horse, (Morning Line), Live Odds)

1) Taiba, (8-1), 11-1

2) Life Is Good, (6-1), 9-1

3) Happy Saver, (30-1), 66-1

4) Flightline, (3-5), 4-11

5) Hot Rod Charlie, (15-1), 40-1

6) Epicenter, (5-1), 7-1

7) Olympiad, (10-1), 40-1

8) Rich Strike, (20-1), 50-1

(Source: Keeneland, 10/31/2022; William Hill, 5/11/2022)

Put in terms of how the Classic will look on the track, the chasm in the British odds means that the British are going to the bank on another dominant, Secretariat-style performance from Flightline. Flightline doesn’t make a huge deal out of the break, other than his jockey and his trainer vastly preferring a clean one, but the athlete himself does soon like to be in position at or near the front of the pack and let the race happen around him from there. Flightline doesn’t “take back.” He doesn’t like to have the race occur front of him. He likes to be in the thick of it, seeing it unfold even as he’s in there chewing up the ground. This occurs well up the backstretch and around the far turn, before he brings his move.

What we know of that move — and it’s quite something unusual even among top-tier Thoroughbreds — is that Flightline’s jockey Flavien Prat doesn’t so much “ask” his partner to run as he spends the early going holding Flightline from spending too much of himself too quickly and then just…lets him go. Flightline does the racing, bluntly put.