Ron Correll
Senior columnist
Tracksideview.com

ARCADIA, Calif., — Muhannak became the winner of the first Breeders’ Cup Marathon when he out-sprinted Church Service to the wire to win the mile-and-a-half race by a head. Big Booster was another three-quarters of a length back in third. Delightful Kiss was fourth.

Booyah and Zappa lead the way early as they set slow fractions of :50.08 seconds for the half-mile and 1:16.71 for six furlongs. Muhannak always was lurking, sitting the first six furlongs in fourth.

Sixties Icon, the post-time favorite, was in fifth, but rounding the turn for the second time he was caught behind a wall of horses and lost momentum. Muhannak managed to split horses coming off the turn and had first jump on the rest. He opened a one-length lead at the eighth-pole and then withstood the late charge of Church Service. Muhannak came home the final quarter-mile in :23.82 seconds. Final time for the Marathon was 2:28.24.

Patrick Smullen, who was on Muhannak, had a plan before the race. “Everything went to plan. As I anticipated, there wasn’t a lot of early pace. I wanted to put myself in the position that I could go on the back turn. It worked out beautifully. The horse fought all the way to the wire.           

“Great credit goes to the trainer (Ralph Beckett). He’s improved this horse unbelievably over the last six months. I’m just privileged to have the ride on him. It’s a dream come true to win a Breeders’ Cup. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. To win a Breeders’ Cup race, I can’t explain it.”

Beckett agreed about the trip.  “He got the perfect trip. Pat just said they were crawling. We worked it out beforehand that he had to be running going into the bend. Whether that meant he hit the front too soon or not, he had to be rolling going into the bend. He got that part of it right. I felt that he was just idling a little bit there the last 50 yards, but maybe he was running on empty. I don’t know. Who cares?      

“He’s trained very well all week. He’s not an easy horse to train. A big, big part of this is the team at home because he hasn’t been easy.”

Edgar Prado had a similar trip with Church Service. “He walked out of the gate.  I wasn’t worried about the pace so I was just biding my time, hoping that he would have some run at the end – and he did.  I thought I was going to get there but I didn’t.”   

Mike Mitchell, who trains Church Service and Big Booster, was happy with both. “I just felt like both horses were training so good, they deserved a shot.  Both were ridden the way I wanted. I would have been happier if we had won, but they just got beat.

“It was great hearing Shea (daughter) singing the national anthem before the races.”