This year's Breeders' Cup is brought to you in association with ActivStyle.
Sounds pretty cool, yeah, but it's not going to happen, because the good people at ActivStyle don't deal in outdoor wear, nor sporting equipment, as the name might suggest. They are in fact incontinence specialists, committed to you and your bladder. You're just one call away from having your incontinence supplies delivered discreetly to your door.
'Hello, is that ActivStyle?' 'Yes, sir, where are you ringing from?' 'The waist down.'
The reason I know about ActivStyle, along with, for that matter, the Potato Jacket (a space-age bag that delivers the perfect jacket potato in just four microwave minutes) and the AcuMask (goggles filled with acupuncture needles to help you sleep, with a free nightmare included), is because these adverts, let alone the products, are compelling viewing when finding yourself in a New York hotel at 11pm, though it's fair to say I was dribbling at the time after a day and night with the Timeform US team in New York.
Commercials are one glorious difference between the UK and the US; phraseology is another.
'Hey Rossi, you know what this guy has just called a check box - a tick!'
It was as if Richard Pryor had come back to life, as everyone bar this Brit fell about, and Marc Attenberg didn't stop there, extending the routine to horse infestation and tightened quarantine laws for the Breeders' Cup. I would have my revenge.
When he's not quipping, Attenburg is busy leading a revolution within American horseracing form, both display and content, through Timeform US. It breaks ground, it opens eyes, it drops jaws - it really is that good - and it's the reason I parachuted into New York on my way to Santa Anita; to get the local lowdown on the Breeders' Cup.
I came to New York a boy, and I left a man, a man with a bad head, but a head full of extra knowledge, which I'll prove now with a true Anglo-American Timeform appreciation of Saturday's huge raceday, including some jargon-busting, as well as that revenge.
When the Timeform rating and the US speed figure marry up at the top, then it's like in Ghostbusters when they cross the streams, double the power, and there's a double-power play straight away with Sweet Reason.
She has already won one Grade 1 and would have made it two but for blowing the start at Belmont last time, also against the pace bias when finishing second to Artemis Agrotera, who had the perfect trip*. Doug Salvatore is an anagram of savoured gloat, and that's exactly what it sounded like to me when he looked me in the eye (down the phone) and said she's a 'very strong selection'. Her outside draw is a positive if anything, given what happened at Belmont, because if you're slow away from an inside post* on dirt* then it's game over, plus there'll be a stronger gallop here than in the Frizette with She's A Tiger for one pressuring AA.
*trip = run of the race
*post = stall
*dirt = imagine Southwell part-hosting Champions Day
There once was a filly called Dank. Let's not go there, but watch her go here.
I had psyched myself up to force Dank down the throat of any American who dared to doubt her, but none did, all having liked what they saw and clocked at Arlington. She's another cross-streamer, top on form and time.
I was still able to bring something to the discussion when it was suggested that Romantica could be a big threat, my US colleagues knowing what Andre Fabre can do and knowing what the dam Banks Hill did in this race in 2001, but I allayed fears by promising them that, though a European Group 1 winner herself, her rating isn't in the same district as Dank's.
Closely related to Eagle Mountain, who was second to Conduit in the 2008 Turf, Dank is unbeaten and improved the three times she's raced beyond a mile, the Beverly D the longest trip (UK 'trip' not US 'trip') tackled, and this is further still. All she has to do is run the same race as last time.
It's a good job I'm here to have my card marked, because the last time a dipped into US racing Groupie Doll was as hot as they got, taking this race apart last year. But that was then and this is now, and Groupie has, as the Americans neatly say, lost a step.
Perhaps the greatest of all the Timeform US innovations is the PP, the Pace Projector. If you can work out - using historical data from the individual runners, with calculated adjustments made for chance and draw - how the start of a race will look then you've got a far better idea about what might happen at the end of it.
And here is where I had my revenge, by exposing and ridiculing a glitch, not in the system but in the expression. An added benefit of the PPs is that it flags up when a race looks likely to be either strongly or steadily run, allowing you to formulate a strategy accordingly.
'So if the pace is overloaded it will say FAST in the corner,' he said confidently, 'and if it's the other way then, well, you know.' I sensed an unease and pounced on it. 'What does it say, Marc?' He squirmed a touch, shuffled in his shoes, exchanged a glance with his general Chris, and let him tell me in defeated tones. 'It says FAVOURS HORSES ON OR NEAR THE EARLY LEAD.' Brilliant! Accurate yes, but catchy no. For such a forward-thinking, sharp-minded team, built the American way with punchy soundbytes all over the website, I revelled in the fact that a paragraph was used when a word would do. That's my speciality, not theirs.
But the Pace Projector is brilliant tool, and it's relevant to this race because, despite it being a 12-runner dirt sprint, there isn't much action up front by the look of things, making it a race that favours horses on or near the early lead. The three-year-old Sweet Lulu, being a horse who races on or near the early lead, could well be favoured therefore, and stall 12 of 12 isn't so bad as it might be, because there are so few other horses who race on or near the early lead. Sweet Lulu has thrived this year, winning four in a row, including a Grade 1 over 7f on dirt, and there was no shame in going down in second to Ladies Classic contender Close Hatches over an extended mile in the Cotillion last time. She'll be on or near the early lead, and the PP says, albeit long-windedly, that is the place to be.
There are probably a dozen European sprinters that could easily win this, but, disappointingly, not a single horse is being brought over for a $1m prize. But most of you will have heard of Conor Murphy, the former assistant to Nicky Henderson who copped the lot with an accumulator at the 2012 Cheltenham Festival, enabling him to set up as a trainer in the US, and he's coming to the Breeders' Cup party courtesy of ex-Brit Dimension in here.
Last year's first and third, Mizdirection and Renesgotzip, are big players once again at a unique track where previous experience counts for plenty, but I've been made aware of a local horse - Chips All In - who's four from five at Santa Anita, including a defeat of Obviously, who would have been amongst the favourites had he run here rather than in the Mile. That's the inside line, do with it what you will.
JUVENILE
'Eyeballs out' is, for me, the gold standard for American racing jargon, painting a full picture in just two words (take note Timeform US), and it was used by one or two in the New York office to describe Havana's brutal win in the Champagne, the implication being that it might have bottomed him out, coupled with the fact he's drawn widest-but-one. Widest of all is Strong Mandate, who actually went off favourite in the Champagne on the back of a huge effort in the Hopeful, which perhaps wasn't all it seemed on a muddy track.
Bob Baffert's impressive maiden winners New Year's Day and, in particular, Tap It Rich could conceivably make the jump, and Bond Holder showed he's got the right credentials when winning the local prep. But the race revolves around Havana. Some are right behind him, fewer seem dead against him, but I'm a layer where he's concerned, all because of those two words: eyeballs out.
TURF
She's gonna win, right?
Admittedly, I was convinced last year too, but defeat in the Filly & Mare Turf wasn't her fault, plus The Fugue is a better horse now.
The words 'fly' and 'ointment' spring to mind to describe Magician's presence, because while we know the limits of the US runners (if not the well-being in the case of the long-absent Point of Entry), Magician remains an unknown quantity, more so over this trip, but he's a Galileo who was second-favourite for the Derby in the aftermath of his demolition job in the Irish Guineas. All the same, and all things being equal, this is The Fugue's to lose.
So yeah, she's gonna win. Right. Damn right.
We're back to the PPs again, the projection being hot for the sprint, red hot, with several trailblazers in the field. That could tee things up perfectly for Justin Phillip who, I was told, is fast becoming the 'wise-guy pick', which is right up there with 'eyeballs out'. As it says on the tin, a wise-guy pick is a horse who starts life as a shrewd selection before the odds die through multiplication. Big and clever becomes short and obvious.
Early favourite on the British markets is Private Zone, but Justin Phillip was unlucky not to beat him when the pair met last month in the Vosburgh at Belmont, looking the better horse, but Private Zone had the rail which, according to the US experts, made a considerable difference at the track that day, potentially flattering. I want to sound like a wise guy, so I'm telling you to back Justin Phillip.
He was vanquished last time, but Wise Dan remains the best horse in the world on Timeform ratings, and surely, surely, he has a better than 50% chance of proving the point by winning the Mile again. Doug Salvatore, aka Deadly Doug, aka Savoured Gloat, made a crucial point to me in trying to rationalise why he couldn't get past Silver Max last time, namely that almost as much of a surprise that he got beat was that he went for the race at all, the Grade 2 Shadwell (which was switched to polytrack on the day) unlikely to have been part of the original plan; the thinking being that something will have been left to work on for his biggest day.
With Obviously in opposition, Silver Max certainly won't be able to repeat his front-running trick from Keeneland, and, rightly or wrongly, I can't have Olympic Glory at all, facing a quick turnaround and such different conditions from Ascot, where he won in a time of 1.44 and change. He won't get much change from the 1.30 or so it takes to complete the Santa Anita turf mile. Again, I'm a wise guy, a Wise Dan sort of guy.
CLASSIC
'Here's something you might not know,' said Attenberg, 'there's a workout time for Declaration of War earlier this year, meaning that, for some time at least, he was training in the US.'
That is an intriguing wrinkle alright. He joined the dots as follows: with his American breeding, Declaration of War was under strong consideration for a US campaign this year, but they weren't happy with something, hence his return to Europe, but it has been a coming-of-age season. What we can say with confidence is that he's got more of a dirt pedigree than any other horse to have represented Ballydoyle in the Classic, and there have been lots of them. It's also interesting that neither Marc nor any of the Timeform US team see War Front as a dirt sire, pointing out that most of his best progeny over there, and not just the handful we're aware of in Britain, have shone on the turf.
Whatever happens, Declaration of War adds an extra dimension to a Classic that otherwise consists of the usual suspects, including the first four from last year, not to forget the beaten favourite then and current favourite now Game On Dude.
At the same time it's accepted that Game On Dude is the horse with the most ability in here, it's acknowledged that the tactical element of the race might be beyond his control, and he is a controller. The Pace Projector has defending champion Fort Larned making the running, though he won't have it his own way, and everything really depends on the plan of attack for Game On Dude, to be drawn up by Bob Baffert and executed by Mike Smith.
It's difficult to call, but that's exactly what a competitive Classic should be, and it promises to be a stormer. The advice? Getting 3/1 about the best horse in the race is tempting even allowing for the tactical conundrum, but I do think Declaration of War has the form, pedigree and the strategy to at least hit the board*.
*be placed
So that's the Breeders' Cup Saturday Preview, brought to you by Jamie Lynch, in grateful association with Timeform US, and sponsored by, who else, ActivStyle.