The weekend racing fans wait for all year long is almost here as the top horses in the country and many from around the world will travel to Del Mar for the 2025 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. The action kicks off on Friday, Oct. 31, with five races for 2-year-olds: the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, the John Deere Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, as well as the two most prominent 2-year-old races that will be run in the United States all year, the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

FanDuel TV will televise the entire first day of this year’s Breeders’ Cup while USA Network will also cover Friday’s first four Breeders’ Cup events plus two preceding undercard races. Continuous coverage of all Friday races including the undercard will stream live on Peacock.

Let’s take a look at key things to know about Friday’s Breeders’ Cup races.

BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE TURF SPRINT

Distance: 5 furlongs on turf

Post time: 5:45 p.m. ET (2:45 local time)

Wagering Menu: Win/place/show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, super hi-5, double, pick 3, pick 5, $3 All-Turf Pick 3

Schwarzenegger wins Indian Summer Stakes (Eclipse Sportswire)

Background: This newest Breeders’ Cup race is not so new anymore as it will be run for the eighth time in 2025. European-based horses have won the last three editions of this race, including 2024 winner Magnum Force whose prior races were all in England and Ireland. Trainer Michael Appleby won this race in 2023 with Irish-bred Big Evs. Trainer Wesley Ward won three of the first four runnings of the Juvenile Turf Sprint. Ward’s top contender in 2025 will be the winner of Keeneland’s Indian Summer Stakes, Schwarzenegger.

Favorites: Irish-based trainer Aidan O’Brien has the probable favorite with Grade 1-winning filly True Love, who is also cross-entered in the Juvenile Fillies Turf. The top U.S. hope is Lennilu, who has compiled a perfect 4-for-4 record in the states with her only loss coming to True Love when the pair faced off at Royal Ascot in England (Lennilu was third). If not True Love, Lennilu, or Schwarzenegger, the other possible favorite will be Cy Fair from turf sprint ace trainer George Weaver, another filly in the field who exits a win against the boys in Woodbine’s Algonquin Stakes.

Interesting storylines: European invaders have swept the exacta in this race in each of the last three years, including a massive $401.80 exacta payoff last year at Del Mar. In the only other prior running of this race run at Del Mar back in 2021, Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. guided the Wesley Ward-trained filly Twilight Gleaming to victory ($12.40 to win) atop a 12-horse field.

NETJETS BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE FILLIES

Distance: 1 1/16 miles on dirt

Post Time: 6:25 p.m. ET (3:25 local time)

Wagering menu: Win/place/show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, super hi-5, double, pick 3, pick 4, special Juvenile Fillies (Friday) – Distaff (Saturday) Daily Double

Del Mar Debutante Stakes winner Bottle of Rouge (Eclipse Sportswire)

Background: One of Friday’s “original seven” Breeders’ Cup races along with the Juvenile, the Juvenile Fillies has been a staple of the Breeders’ Cup since the event’s inception in 1984. The winner of this race is almost always voted the Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old filly, including each of the last 11 winners up through 2024 winner Immersive.

Favorites: Bob Baffert trains two of the most likely favorites in the 2025 Juvenile Fillies with Del Mar Debutante winner Bottle of Rouge and Santa Anita’s Oak Leaf Stakes presented by Oak Tree Racing Association winner Explora. The other horses in the race will have a tough time beating either one of Baffert’s duo on their home turf, let alone both. Lately, the Juvenile Fillies winner has almost always been a winner of one of the three key final prep races, including the aforementioned Oak Leaf Stakes (Explora), the Frizette Stakes at Belmont at the Big A (Iron Orchard), or Keeneland’s Darley Alcibiades Stakes (Tommy Jo).

Interesting Storylines: The 2024 Juvenile Filly winner Immersive ($6.00) became only the fourth winning favorite of this race in the past 14 years, joining Echo Zulu in 2021, Songbird in 2015, and My Miss Aurelia in 2011. Surprisingly, Baffert has won this race only twice in its long history and has no wins since 2007, when he last scored with Indian Blessing.

JOHN DEERE BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE FILLIES TURF

Distance: 1 mile on turf

Post Time: 7:05 p.m. ET (4:05 local time)

Wagering menu: Win/place/show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, super hi-5, double, pick 3

Background: Somewhat surprisingly, the Juvenile Fillies Turf mostly has been dominated by U.S.-based fillies in its 17-year history since first being run in 2008. Things may be changing, however, because trainer Aidan O’Brien has won two of the last three years, including last year with odds-on favorite Lake Victoria. She joined O’Brien’s Meditate (2022), Chriselliam in 2013, and Flotilla in 2012 as the only foreign-based winners to date.

Multiple Group 1 winner Precise (Eclipse Sportswire)

Favorites: One of the reasons the Europeans often did not win this race in the past was because they weren’t sending their top-caliber 2-year-old fillies to the Breeders’ Cup. That was not the case last year, however, thanks to O’Brien’s favored Lake Victoria, and it won’t be the case again this year if O’Brien sends over Precise, a winner of four races in a row in England and Ireland including two Group 1 stakes. Precise is expected to be this year’s heavy favorite. If it’s not Precise, O’Brien may also have a second major contender in the field with True Love, who is cross-entered in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, and maybe even a third option with Beautify.

Interesting storylines: Trainer Chad Brown, one of the dominating forces in the history of this race with six wins in the 17 prior runnings, will not have a runner entered in this year’s Juvenile Fillies Turf. The top U.S.-based hope in the field could be any of the top three finishers from Keeneland’s Jessamine Stakes Presented by Keeneland Sales including Imaginationthelady (1^st), Infinite Sky (2^nd), and Time to Dream (3^rd). Belmont Park’s Miss Grillo Stakes, run at Aqueduct this year, is often a key prep race for the Juvenile Fillies Turf. This year, the Miss Grillo was won by the fascinating Ground Support, a legitimate contender whose only other race was her maiden win at Kentucky Downs as a 100-1 longshot.

FANDUEL BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE PRESENTED BY TAA

Distance: 1 1/16 miles on dirt

Post Time: 7:45 p.m. ET (4:45 local time)

Wagering menu: Win/place/show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, super hi-5, double, special Juvenile (Friday) – Classic (Saturday) Daily Double

Background: The Juvenile has been one of the Breeders’ Cup’s marquee events since the first Breeders’ Cup in 1984 and it will be the featured race on Friday’s Breeders’ Cup program. The search for next year’s top Kentucky Derby prospects kicks into high gear in this race. Most Juvenile winners go on to win the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male, including last year’s winner Citizen Bull, in addition to every winner in the 2020s including Fierceness (2023), Forte (2022), Corniche (2021), and Essential Quality (2020).

Ted Noffey wins Claiborne Breeders' Futurity (BloodHorse/Mathea Kelley)

Favorites: The projected favorite in the 2025 Juvenile is Ted Noffey, who also qualifies as one of this year’s interesting storylines. The winner of both Saratoga’s Grade 1 Spendthrift Farm Hopeful Stakes and Keeneland’s Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity, Ted Noffey, the equine, is named for Ned Toffey, the human general manager of Spendthrift Farm whose name got transposed in a social media post with the first letters of his names reversed. “I was just hoping he'd be faster than me,” Ned Toffey said of Ted Noffey. “The name part is great, but we want him to go on and do more. Hopefully, the story is not done.”

Interesting Storylines: The Juvenile has not been a good predictor of Kentucky Derby greatness with only two winners in the history of the Juvenile winning the Derby the following year (Street Sense in 2006-’07 and Nyquist in 2015-’16). Optimistically, you can point to the 2022 Juvenile where the third- and fourth-place finishers, National Treasure and Blazing Sevens, respectively, came back to run 1-2 in the 2023 Preakness Stakes. The 2020 Juvenile was another good year for the Juvenile and produced several future stars, including Essential Quality, Hot Rod Charlie, Jackie’s Warrior, and Rombauer. Last year’s juvenile, on the other hand, produced only two 2025 Kentucky Derby starters with Juvenile winner Citizen Bull finishing 15th and Juvenile ninth-place finisher East Avenue running eighth in the Derby. The winner of the 2023 Juvenile, Fierceness, was the only horse in that race to make it to the 2024 Kentucky Derby, where he finished 15^th. The 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile failed to yield even a single starter in the 2022 Kentucky Derby.

BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE TURF

Distance: 1 mile on the turf

Post Time: 8:25 p.m. ET (5:25 local time)

Wagering menu: Win/place/show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, super hi-5, special Juvenile Turf (Friday) – Turf (Saturday) Daily Double

Aidan O’Brien is interviewed at Del Mar (Eclipse Sportswire)

Background: The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf was first held in 2007 – one year before the start of the Juvenile Fillies Turf. Unlike its filly counterpart on the Breeders’ Cup card, Europeans have historically done very well with wins in 12 of the first 18 editions. Trainer Aidan O’Brien’s Henri Matisse rallied from 11^th to win last year’s Juvenile Turf in a thriller over California-based longshot Iron Man Cal. Euro dominance was on full display in 2023 when O’Brien and the Coolmore connections ran 1-2 with Unquestionable and Mountain Bear. In the 2022 Juvenile Turf it was more of the same when Victoria Road, representing Coolmore, beat Silver Knott, representing Godolphin, by a nose. The last American win in the Juvenile Turf was in 2020 when Fire at Will pulled off the upset for Mike Maker, but even then, Europeans still managed to finish second, fourth, and fifth.

Favorites: O’Brien is going for his fourth straight win in this race and has his choice of horses to bring with him from his base in Ireland. This year he picked Coolmore’s Gstaad, and that alone makes him the horse to beat. Gstaad has never been worse that second in five lifetime starts including three straight runner-up finishes in top juvenile races in France, England, and Ireland. Top North American challengers include Belmont at the Big A’s Pilgrim Stakes winner Bottas, who is 2-for-2; Hey Nay Nay, who won the Del Mar Juvenile Turf over this course; and Argos, who stretched out for the first time last out and won Woodbine’s Grade 1 bet365 Summer Stakes.

Interesting Storylines: Counting Henri Matisse last year, O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore have teamed up to win seven times in 18 prior runnings of the Juvenile Turf (three in a row since 2022). Moore is currently out with an injury, but whatever horse(s) O’Brien brings stateside for this race will have to be considered the horse(s) to beat, so we’ll anxiously wait and see which jockey is named to ride. Could it be Frankie Dettori?