Racing Roundtable: Rebel's Romance on quest for Breeders' Cup history

On this week's Racing Roundtable, James Scully, Ashley Anderson, and Vance Hanson scrutinize the performances of Rebel's Romance, Mystik Dan, and more as the racing season inches closer to the Breeders' Cup World Championships.

Two-time winner of the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1), Rebel's Romance scored a 3 1/2-length victory in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (G1) at Belmont at the Big A in his final prep ahead of the Breeders' Cup at Del Mar.

The Godolphin homebred held on to prevail by a neck in last year's edition of the Breeders' Cup Turf — his second win in the event —and will attempt to make history in the latest edition by becoming just the second horse to win a Breeders' Cup race three times. 

The only other runner to do it was Goldikova, the Irish-bred mare who visited the winner's circle three times in the Breeders' Cup Mile (G1).

In the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1), Mystik Dan — the winner of Kentucky Derby (G1) 150 — will go for his first Breeders' Cup score after pulling off a gutsy stretch run to win the 1 1/8-mile Lukas Classic (G2) by three-quarters of a length at Churchill Downs. The Kenny McPeek trainee has raced between 1 1/16 miles and 1 1/4 miles in his last six starts but will try a shorter distance as opposed to running in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), where he'd faced the likes of Kentucky Derby 150 runner-up Sierra Leone, champion Fierceness and leading three-year-old Sovereignty.

More Breeders' Cup prep action occurred over the weekend at Santa Anita. Scully, Anderson, and Hanson discuss some of the top performers from those races and more to close out this week's Roundtable show.