It’s just plain remarkable that the defending champion of last year’s Breeder’s Cup Classic, the Chad Brown-trained veteran Sierra Leone, carries such officially low expectations into the same $7-million race this Saturday. First it’s an indication of the tremendous skewing force exercised by the clear candidate for Horse of the Year, Sovereignty. Obviously, Sovereignty was on the track and winning in 2024, but as an emerging two-year-old, and he wasn’t on the Classic radar. More pointedly, Sierra Leone’s relatively low status on the Del Mar morning line indicates a distinct and in some ways very odd cooling of the playing hivemind for the athlete.
That’s a clear reflection of the Del Mar thought on the tons of talent brought by the four other morning-line heavy contenders attempting a go at Sovereignty on Saturday, namely, Journalism, Fierceness, Baeza and Forever Young. But before we get into Sierra Leone’s chances against them, here’s the morning refresher on the field.
Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Morning Line
1) Fierceness, John Velasquez, Todd Pletcher, 4-1
2) Baeza, Hector Berrios, John Shirreffs, 15-1
3) Nevada Beach, Mike Smith, Bob Baffert, 20-1
4) Contrary Thinking, Florent Geroux, Chad Brown, 50-1
5) Forever Young, Ryusei Sakai, Yoshito Yahagi, 6-1
6) Sovereignty, Junior Alvarado,William Mott, 6-5
7) Sierra Leone, Flavien Prat, Chad Brown, 8-1
8) Mindframe, Irad Ortiz, Jr., Todd Pletcher, 10-1
9) Journalism, Jose Ortiz, Michael McCarthy, 10-1
10) Antiquarian, Luis Saez, Todd Pletcher, 15-1
(Source: Breeders’ Cup, 10/28)
At 8-1 in the morning line, Sierra Leone has been seated behind the Japan-owned traveler Forever Young, who is, as curiously, seen by Del Mar as the race’s third-favorite at 6-1. Whether Forever Young remains third in the odds as the windows open at Del Mar on Friday is another question, but for the moment, in a larger sense, it does seem quite odd that the veteran defending Classic champion should be thought about half as likely to win the race as the Todd Pletcher-trained second-favorite, Fierceness, at 4-1.
Fierceness’ implied probability to win the race — which we should remind ourselves very much includes beating Sovereignty — is set at a remarkably high 20%. Sierra Leone’s 8-1 odds puts him at an implied probability of winning at a scarce 11.1%.