No, the pre Breeders’ Cup retirement announcement hypothesis is not the name of my punk band, but it is the name of a handicapping angle I’ve employed with success through the years.

The thought is that any stallion prospect who gets his retirement announcement before the Breeders’ Cup is a toss because his connections are not confident they will have racing’s attention after the Breeders’ Cup.

Anyone bullish on their stallion prospect’s chances knows they would get a lot more buzz with a win but less so after a loss, especially a bad one. And that’s not only about coverage but also interest in the stud’s book itself.

In otherwords, one in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

A note about the word “retirement.” This angle applies only to retirement announcements. So it is not in play for Breeders’ Cup Classic hopeful Fierceness because his announcement this week was merely related to where he would retire to while leaving the door open to race as a 4-year-old. I’ll believe it when I see it, but brass tacks is this applies only to retirement announcements.

To wit, Flightline had similar press as Fierceness. Lane’s End was announced as his post-racing home, but the retirement came after he won the Classic. 

It is also worth noting that Godolphin said before the 2023 Breeders’ Cup that Cody’s Wish would retire after the Dirt Mile, so his winning that race does not support the hypothesis.

Of course, there is still plenty of evidence in favor of it, otherwise I would not be typing this. The graphic above shows just a few of the examples.

Arrogate and Galileo stick out to me most because Arrogate was favored at Del Mar, and Galileo is similar to City of Troy, one of four stallion prospects this angle applies to this year.

The others are Big Evs in the Turf Sprint, Bradsell in the Sprint and Domestic Product in the Dirt Mile. I’m tossing all four.