Report: Champion scratch Mostahdaf will go to BC Turf

Two-time Group 1 winner Mostahdaf, who was scratched from Saturday’s Group 1 Champion Stakes in England, was expected to be redirected to the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 4, according to a U.K. report Sunday.

“With the option of the Breeders’ Cup still to come, there didn’t seem any point in bowing out on a low note when we can go to California with a chance of running him on fast ground in a couple weeks’ time if he’s still well,” Shadwell racing manager Angus Gold told Racing TV.

Report: No decision yet on King Of Steel for BC Turf.

Mostahdaf and triple-classic and Irish Champion (G1) victor Auguste Rodin were showing as 3-1 co-favorites Sunday in U.K. betting for the Breeders’ Cup Turf, according to Oddschecker.

The rain-softened ground at Ascot was the reason the Shadwell Estate homebred 5-year-old horse was withdrawn from the season-ending Champion Stakes. Mostahdaf, a son of Frankel, won the Prince of Wales’s (G1) in June at Royal Ascot and the August running of the International (G1) at York.

Since he finished last on the very soft ground at ParisLongchamp in the 2022 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1), Mostahdaf is 4: 3-0-0, all on good or good-to-firm turf.

Gold said Shadwell heir Sheikha Hissa and co-trainers John and Thady Gosden went back and forth with him on whether to race Saturday.

“After the first race, the first two jockeys I spoke to were the reigning champion jockey (William Buick), who described it as horrible and heavy, and Rab Havlin, who was third, said it was heavy. John and I had another look at it and spoke to Sheikha Hissa and said, ‘Look, it’s your decision, but the ground isn’t going to be in his favor.’ John just felt it wasn’t fair on the horse ending his career in ground we know he doesn’t like.”

Mostahdaf’s only loss this year came in his fourth-place result in the Dubai Sheema Classic (G1) in March at Meydan. Instead of his more familiar 1 1/4-mile wheelhouse, Mostahdaf was asked to go 1 1/2 miles that day, the same distance as the Breeders’ Cup Turf that starts next month on the downhill chute at Santa Anita.

“Over an American mile-and-a-half, going down that hill for the first four furlongs or whatever it is, I think he’ll stay it,” Gold said. “Whether he’ll win over it I can’t tell you, but I don’t think it will be that (distance) that beats him.”

Pre-entries for the Breeders’ Cup are due Monday. The prospective fields for the 14 championships will be announced Wednesday. The races themselves will be run Nov. 3 and 4.