Racing fans prepare for Breeders Cup 2012

The 2012 Breeder’s Cup weekend taking place in Santa Anita on the weekend of November the 2nd and 3rd will as ever provide a plethora of punting opportunities.

The world famous meeting is racing’s most exciting extravaganza and the Breeders’ Cup World Championships has become recognized as the ultimate test of horse and jockey. The world’s leading superstars head to the event and battle it out in a sensational climax to the year long championship and with the meeting encompassing almost every division of the sport; the Breeders’ Cup really does present racing fans with the grandest spectacle imaginable.

Whether your fancy is for juvenile or three year old races, turf or dirt performers, the pure adrenalin rush of sprinters or the middle distance championships of the Classic or Turf, there are always plenty of opportunities to make the bookies pay.

All the major high street and online bookmakers will be pricing up the events, while you can always take the US parimutuel odds and land an occasional massive hit especially on an unfancied European contender or when a perceived shoe-in is overturned.

Punters who opposed Goldikova’s attempt at an unprecedented fourth Breeder’s Cup Mile victory last year were rewarded with odds of 65-1 if they managed to pick out the winner Court Vision.

That was the second biggest return on Breeder’s Cup history, and Afleet Again’s victory in the marathon was another whopper at 40-1, but both of these are dwarfed by the monster payout which took place at this year’s venue in 1993.

Bettors sent Andre Fabre-trained Arcangues off at odds of 133-1 in the richest of the Breeders’ Cup races. Under last-minute jockey Jerry Bailey, the horse caught Bertrando in the homestretch to score the biggest upset in Breeders’ Cup history. The payout of $269.20 for a $2 wager remains a Breeders’ Cup record.

There will be plenty of opportunities to strike at the bookies with intense competition for punters money, especially as Santa Anita is likely to attract plenty of European raiders and familiar names from the increasingly international sport of horseracing.

With a high percentage of European contenders and the likelihood of plenty of European winners at all sorts of prices, this year’s Breeder’s Cup in Santa Anita promises to be a feast of betting action with a wager for every type of punter.