From its inauguration in 1984, the Breeders’ Cup has lured a Who’s Who list of owners, trainers and jockeys.
A subplot to Saturday’s renewal is the four people on the Who’s Who list who won’t be at Monmouth Park:
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*Preakness winner Curlin’s co-owners, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion, are sending their regrets from the slammer after being deemed flight risks before the start of their Jan. 7 trial for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
*Six-time English jockey champion Kieran Fallon will be a no-show on Arc de Triomphe winner Dylan Thomas because of a previous commitment to stand trial in London for alleged race-fixing.
*Patrick Biancone can’t make it because he has turned over the seven Breeders’ Cup horses he pre-entered to his assistant trainer, Francois Parisel, while he awaits the Nov. 1 start of a one-year suspension for possession of cobra venom. The nerve-blocking agent was discovered in a June barn raid at Keeneland.
Curlin is a possible favorite in Saturday’s main event, the $5 million Classic, as is Dylan Thomas in the second-most lucrative race, the $3 million Turf. The best of Biancone’s horses is undefeated La Traviata, pre-entered in both the $2 million Sprint and the new $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint.
Gallion and Cunningham purchased Curling as a yearling for $57,000. In February, they sold an 80 percent interest in the 3-year-old colt to Stonestreet Stables, Padua Stables and George Bolton for a reported $3.5 million while retaining a 20 percent share.
The deal was made after Curlin won his first race. He now has an eight-race resume highlighted by five triumphs, a second and a pair of thirds.
Meanwhile, Cunningham, Gallion and a fellow attorney, Melbourne Mills Jr., had their bonds revoked by a federal judge Aug. 10 in Kentucky. Their criminal indictment alleges they fraudulently received $46 million in a class-action settlement for the diet drug Fen-Phen, of which the victims were entitled to $42 million.
Fallon and two other jockeys are accused of communicating with a professional gambler to ensure horses they were riding lost in 27 races between December 2002 and September 2004. The chief prosecutor told the court that the conspirators made $3 million in wagers but wound up losing $400,000 because Fallon won five of the races he was supposed to fix.
Fallon has continued to ride in France and Ireland since the charges were filed last year and is 6-for-6 on Dylan Thomas. But in 2006 he lost his license to ride in England — where he has won six jockey championships — and the U.S. is honoring the revocation.
Biancone is best known for training the outstanding French filly All Along. He was based in his native France in 1983 when he sent this Arc de Triomphe winner to win three major international races in the U.S. and Canada and earn North American Horse of the Year honors.
He later moved to Hong Kong, but after receiving a 10-month suspension for two drug positives, he came to the U.S. in 2000.
The current cobra venom episode also involves Biancone’s stable veterinarian, Rod Stewart, who has been suspended for five years. Biancone claims he didn’t know about the banned substances Stewart is accused of possessing.
“I have been vilified in the media and elsewhere for alleged conduct that I did not engage in,” Biancone said in a statement after reaching a settlement with the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority last week.
“I have tried for the last four months to establish my innocence. I fully cooperated with the investigation and took a polygraph exam. The settlement agreement acknowledges that while there were substances in my barn that had no business being there. … I did not know cobra venom had been placed in my barn. I do not use cobra venom and have not used it.”
In recent years, prohibited-drug cases involving thoroughbred trainers have become as common as steroid allegations in baseball. Early this year Curlin’s trainer, Steve Asmussen, concluded a six-month suspension after the nerve-blocking agent Mepivicaine was detected in a horse he ran in Louisiana, and Todd Pletcher, who has 15 horses pre-entered in the Breeders’ Cup, finished a 45-day suspension when traces of Mepivicaine were found in a horse he ran in New York.
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