Photo:

Shamela Hanley / Eclipse Sportswire

After a losing experiment in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Next will return to what he does so well next year as racing’s great marathon runner.

“As soon as I see what the marathon schedule looks like, he’ll be right back on that path,” trainer Doug Cowans said of his popular 6-year-old. “We won’t look back. It will probably be a four-race thing, and we’ll go from there.”

Perhaps the best thing that can be said of the Not This Time gelding’s Classic appearance is that he returned from Del Mar to his Turfway Park home base unscathed. In cutting back on distance while stepping up in company, he finished last of 14, beaten 34 1/4 lengths by Sierra Leone in the 1 1/4-mile contest that brings together the world’s elite.

Plans call for him to be turned out at a nearby farm until he resumes training at the start of the new season. Then he will go back to a campaign that has worked so well the last couple of years.

Next had reeled off a seven-race winning streak on behalf of owner Michael Foster before he ventured to the West Coast. His Classic flop marked his first defeat since he was third in the Isaac Murphy Marathon Overnight Stakes May 3, 2023, at Churchill Downs.

His winning streak was comprised of a pair of victories in the Brooklyn Stakes, the Birdstone Stakes and the Greenwood Cup at Parx as well as a successful return to the Isaac Murphy this past May 1.

All of those are likely to again be staples on his schedule. Cowans also said he will consider another West Coast trek because Next proved that travel is not a problem for him.

“He handled everything just fine,” the trainer said. “I felt I accomplished a couple of things, learning that the horse will fly and settle in just fine. He trained just fine once we got to the Breeders’ Cup.”

Cowans anticipated that the Classic might be asking too much and he had conveyed that concern to regular rider Luan Machado. “I had an agreement with the jock that when the horse wasn’t able to do that tempo, to kind of take care of him. That’s what he did.” Machado eased his mount in the stretch.

There was reason to think there would be a solid pace, but no one could have anticipated that Japan’s Derma Sotogake, ridden by Christophe Lemaire, would rocket to the front the way he did. He set unsustainable fractions of 22.43 seconds for the opening quarter and a cracking 44.96 seconds for the half.

Derma Sotogake could not possibly keep that up, faltering badly and defeating only Next.

Cowans, in discussing all that went wrong, said, “It was the distance, but it was more the tempo. That tempo was awfully fast. They went a half in 44. That’s just too fast for his liking and for him to keep up. It was hard for him to even get into a rhythm. It was just tough for him. It was more of a scramble mode instead of a nice rhythm.”

Next also had been entered in the 1 1/2-mile Turf even though he had not competed on grass in more than two years. Cowans has no regrets about bypassing the Turf.

“It’s been the talk all year about everybody wanting to shorten the horse down,” Cowans noted. “I think if I went to the Turf, I would have faced the same scenario next year when he was winning again.”

Perhaps Next’s many fans will come to appreciate him for what he is instead of looking for him to be something he is not. He owns 13 victories in 24 starts with $1,336,361 in lifetime earnings.

Although the gelding might not fit the Classic, no one can say he is not classy.