By ITM Staff
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Join ITM Plus →The Breeders’ Cup post-position draw moved no horse’s win chance by more than 3 percentage points. That’s the headline, and it’s worth remembering every time a trainer winces on camera at a wide post.
We took each horse’s win chance from the figure-based tissue of Rob Dove, one of the top 10 pro punters in the UK today, for the final fields. His tissue doesn’t consider post position, so we adjusted it for where each horse drew. The adjustment comes from ITM’s Breeders’ Cup database: how often each group of posts has actually won since 2002, against what random chance would predict. Because the draw is random, that comparison isn’t skewed by the quality of the horses who happened to land there. And because the samples are small, we pulled every adjustment most of the way back toward zero.
Watch the Breeders’ Cup’s own five takeaways from the draw:
The result: a handful of contenders gained or lost a point or two, and a few big names lost close to 3.
The losers
| Horse | Race | Post | Before draw | After draw | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Folsom Blues | Juvenile Turf | 10 | 26.4% | 23.4% | −3.0 |
| Notable Speech | Mile | 8 | 24.8% | 21.9% | −2.9 |
| Sun Goddess | Juvenile Fillies Turf | 9 | 30.9% | 28.2% | −2.8 |
| Nitrogen | Distaff | 2 | 45.4% | 42.9% | −2.5 |
| Domain Expansion | Juvenile Fillies | 2 | 17.0% | 15.5% | −1.6 |
| Gaudreau | Juvenile | 2 | 11.5% | 10.1% | −1.4 |
Folsom Blues takes the biggest hit. Joseph O’Brien’s colt won the National Stakes, a Win and You’re In for this race, then ran second in the Lagardere, and Dove’s tissue makes him the Juvenile Turf choice. But post 10 sits in the 8–10 group that has never won this race: 0-for-57 since it was first run in 2007, though with eight seconds.
Notable Speech and Sun Goddess suffer from the same post group. In BC turf routes, posts 8–10 have won 20 times where random chance predicts 25. Notable Speech, the defending Mile champion, won the Woodbine Mile last out for Charlie Appleby (Mile defenders are 5-for-13, as we found in Can Breeders’ Cup winners do it again?). Sun Goddess, Ryan Moore’s mount, won the Cheveley Park. PTF profiled both for At The Races: Notable Speech and Sun Goddess.
Nitrogen is the dirt loser. Mark Casse’s Beldame winner owns the best career Beyer in the Distaff by 7 points, a 113, but she drew post 2, and BC dirt-route posts 2–3 have won 20 times where chance predicts about 24. Domain Expansion (Juvenile Fillies) and Gaudreau (Juvenile) drew the same spot. (PTF on Nitrogen.)
Worth saying: all four of the biggest losers are still their race’s top choice in Dove’s tissue after the adjustment. The draw dented them a little. It didn’t knock them off the top.
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The winners
| Horse | Race | Post | Before draw | After draw | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T O Elvis | Sprint | 11 | 35.5% | 37.3% | +1.8 |
| Fully Subscribed | Distaff | 4 | 15.1% | 16.8% | +1.7 |
| Hughes | Juvenile | 5 | 45.5% | 47.1% | +1.6 |
| Qirat | Mile | 7 | 11.9% | 13.4% | +1.5 |
| Lord Fons | Dirt Mile | 6 | 29.6% | 31.0% | +1.4 |
The middle of the gate is where the gains are. In BC dirt routes, posts 4–7 have won 51 times where chance predicts 47. Fully Subscribed, Chad Brown’s Spinster winner, and Hughes, Bob Baffert’s American Pharoah winner (PTF’s profile), both sit there. So does Lord Fons, the Japanese runner Dove’s tissue makes the Dirt Mile choice.
In BC turf routes, posts 4–7 have won 42 times where chance predicts 36. That helps Qirat, Ralph Beckett’s Prix Daniel Wildenstein winner, who moves up in a Mile that lost Gstaad and Constitution River.
T O Elvis is the surprise. Posts 11 and wider have done better than you’d think in BC dirt sprints, which brings us to Englishman.
Englishman: our numbers don’t hate his draw
Englishman drew post 13 of 13 in the Sprint, and it looks like a disaster. Our numbers say otherwise: his win chance edges up, from 21.2% to 22.3%, and he stays second choice behind T O Elvis.
The reason is the history. Posts 11 and wider have won 7 BC dirt sprints from 67 starters since 2002, where random chance predicts about 5. Work All Week won the 2014 Sprint from post 13 of 14, on the lead or close to it the whole way.
That’s Englishman’s game, too. Cherie DeVaux’s colt led at every call to win the H. Allen Jerkens, with a 117 Beyer that’s 9 points clear of anything else in this field. He won the Woody Stephens before that.
The catch is getting there. Dove’s pace model gives Englishman the biggest draw penalty in the Sprint on his chance of leading early, and he has 12 horses inside him, including the rail speedster Mad House. If Jose Ortiz can get him to the front or close to it, the post may not matter. If not, he’ll be wide all the way.
PTF profiled Englishman for At The Races: In profile: Englishman.
How we did it
- Win chances: Rob Dove’s tissue for the final fields, built from several sets of speed figures, including his own and DRF Beyers, plus form ratings. It doesn’t use post position.
- Draw adjustment: ITM’s Breeders’ Cup database, 2002–2025. For each post group (1, 2–3, 4–7, 8–10, 11 and wider), in dirt and turf, sprints and routes, we compared actual wins with what random chance predicts. The draw is random, so the horses’ quality doesn’t skew it.
- Kept small on purpose: each adjustment is pulled most of the way back to no effect. The adjustments run from 0.87 to 1.11 times a horse’s chance, and each race is then re-scaled to add to 100%.
- Read it as a nudge, not a verdict: the samples run from 26 starters in a post group to a few hundred. Most of these splits are within what luck alone produces.
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