With the end of the racing year upon us, I would like to thank some of the people who have made 2010 a great year for our sport.

It has been done many times, but I cannot thank Jerry and Ann Moss enough for giving us one more year of Zenyatta. Many owners would have retired her after her first Breeders’ Cup victory, but the Mosses, along with John Shirreffs, allowed us unprecedented access to one of the greatest race horses of all time.

Thanks to Arnold Zetcher, not only for his financial investment in the game, but for his personal investment. Mr. Zetcher has stepped into a leadership role here in California, at a time when leadership is desperately needed.

Thanks to Ray Paulick for being willing to report on the stories others are afraid of. Your website has become “can’t miss reading” for many of us in the industry.

Thanks to everyone who donated time or money to organizations taking care of retired race horses. The downturn in our economy has been hard on everyone, and some horses were caught up in its wake. But thanks to a lot of dedicated hard work, more horses are being adopted now than ever before.

Hopefully 2011 will give our sport a new group of leaders of whom we can be proud.

Gary

With the Breeders’ Cup only 10 days away, the fields for the fourteen championship races are starting to take shape. Here are five horses I believe are the most underrated going into our championship weekend.

Sprint — Supreme Summit
This is a horse improving at the right time. Off of a long layoff and a trainer change, he was impressive winning an allowance race at Del Mar. In his next start, he rallied from last to finish second in the G1 Ancient Title Stakes at Oak Tree. He has improved greatly since being turned over to trainer Mike Puype, who is convinced his horse is coming up to his best race. He will likely go off between 10-1 and 20-1, and will be running in his third race off the layoff, often a horse’s top effort.

Turf Sprint — Unzip Me
This filly has had a nearly perfect year, winning six of her seven starts in 2010. The best thing about her resume is her win at Woodbine, where she proved that she does not have to have the lead to win. California sprinters have always fared well in these events, and this one should have value around the 10-1 range because of the large field.

Ladies Classic — Malibu Prayer
All the attention in this race will be focused on Life at Ten and Blind Luck, but it could be Todd Pletcher’s other filly in the race who pulls the upset here. Malibu Prayer failed as the 3-5 favorite in her last race, but I believe we should give her another chance. This filly looked awfully good winning the Ruffian at Saratoga this year, leaving Unrivaled Belle in her wake. A repeat of that performance will be good enough to put her in the hunt, and her price will likely be above 5-1.

Filly and Mare Sprint — Switch
How often do we get to say that a horse is dropping in class going into a Breeders’ Cup race? Unless they are coming out of the Arc, not very often. Switch has already defeated Blind Luck this year, and just got done giving Zenyatta all she wanted. Neither of those horses turn up here, and she still gets to run for a million bucks. This is a deep race, so the favorite may only be 3-1, and I don’t think she will get the kind of attention Informed Decision or Dubai Majesty will.

Juvenile Filly Turf — Kathmanblu
In this division, everyone is raving about the performance of Winter Memories at Belmont. Impressive as it was, I believe Kathmanblu’s performance at Keeneland has been forgotten. She was six wide on the far turn, and still won by four without being asked. The McPeek trainee is deserving of much more hype going into the race, but likely won’t get it. If we can get better than 7-2 here, I like her chances at a profit.