2012 Breeders' Cup

The 2012 Breeders' Cup World Championships was the 29th edition of the premier event of the North American thoroughbred horse racing year, which took place November 2 and 3 at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. The winners were bred in the United States except where indicated. The Breeders' Cup is generally regarded as the end of the North American racing season, although a few Grade I events take place in later November and December. The 2012 Breeders' Cup results were highly influential in the Eclipse Award divisional championship voting.

The Breeders' Cup Challenge provides winners of the designated races with an automatic "Win and You're In" Berth in the Breeders' Cup. Races are chosen by the Breeders' Cup organization and included key prep races in the various Breeders' Cup divisions from around the world.

For 2012, the series consisted of 73 races in 10 countries, 52 of which were Grade / Group One events. Forty-five horses entered in the 2012 Breeders' Cup races qualified via the challenge series, including seven of the winners. These were:

The highlight of the 2012 event was generally considered to be Wise Dan's victory in the Mile, completed in an "eye-popping" 1:31.78, a new track record. Although European horses were expected to be his biggest challengers, the 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom finished second despite not having raced since February. "It really hasn't hit me yet", said Wise Dan's trainer Charles Lopresti. "It's an incredible accomplishment, but it's really just the horse. He's done things in the morning that you just don't believe, and you work all your life to have a horse like this."

Game On Dude came into the Classic as the favorite after a brilliant campaign that included wins in the Hollywood Gold Cup and Awesome Again Stakes. A win would likely have earned him Horse of the Year honors but he was sluggish and finished seventh. Longshot Fort Larned won in a front running performance, just holding off Mucho Macho Man at the wire. No European horses were entered in the Classic, a change attributed to the growing success of Champion Day at Ascot and Santa Anita's switch from the synthetic dirt surface used from 2006 to 2011 back to natural dirt.

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