'If you're in Rome, you don't fight with the Pope' - wild day at the Breeders' Cup ends with cathartic win for Aidan O'Brien

"It's been a turbulent day," said Aidan O'Brien, stepping down from the press conference podium after the last of Friday night's Breeders' Cup races. If anything, it was an understated way of describing a ten-hour period in which he had a fancied runner unexpectedly withdrawn, then had the winner and second in the same race with his remaining runners and finally saw the runner-up being vanned off the course with a leg injury.

Fortunately, it turns out that the prognosis is excellent for Mountain Bear, who suffered an undisplaced condylar fracture. "It happens a lot," the trainer said. "So he can get a cast on him for four weeks and should be fine. He's down in the barn and settled in now." 

It was a great bit of news to end a fine day at the races for the visiting Europeans, who had two winners and three runners-up in the three Breeders' Cup races for juveniles on turf. Things had looked much less promising in the morning when early arrivals at Santa Anita were met with a list of 16 non-runners, an incredible tally for a valuable card for which the going was exactly as expected.