2013 Breeders' Cup Venue Named

After months of speculation, the location of the 2013 Breeders' Cup has been announced. The two-day event will be staying at Santa Anita next year, the same track the Breeders' Cup will run at this year. Santa Anita was also the host of the 2008 and 2009 runnings of the event.

The two years at Santa Anita follows a two-year stint at Churchill Downs in 2010 and 2011.

It seems that the Breeders' Cup is starting a "two year" trend, but there have also been whispers for the past several years of the possibility of finding the "World Championships" a permanent home.

While those whispers don't seem to be too serious at this time, the event has seemed to make the two recent tracks its home in recent years.

Only four other tracks (Belmont twice, Arlington Park, Lone Star Park, and Monmouth) have been hosts to the Breeders' Cup since 2000. Churchill Downs has hosted the Championships four times since 2000, while this year's running will also be Santa Anita's fourth time hosting the event in this century.

Monmouth was the last track to host the Breeders' Cup outside of the two recent venues, hosting the races in 2007.

While this writer is against the Breeders' Cup staying at one venue full time, the trend of moving between a more east coast-based track and a west coast-based track is something that I could potentially get behind.

Not only would this allow for fans on both sides of the country to have a chance to see the races without traveling long distances, it would also give the horses a shot at not having to ship too far to run at the "Championship" event.

As the Breeders' Cup also calls itself the "World Championships", it also give overseas horses on both sides of our country (Asia/South Pacific and Europe) the chance at an easier ship depending on the year.

It is completely possible that if the Breeders' Cup ever did decided to rotate between the east and west coasts, they would name only two tracks, especially after only getting three serious bids for 2013. 

But I think many people can agree moving between two different tracks on both sides of the country would be a much better compromise than only having a track on one coast ever see Breeders' Cup fans walk through their gate.

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