The world’s richest horse race doubled as last year’s most exciting horse race.
Forever Young, the Japan-based standout who wound up as North America’s champion older-male dirt horse of 2025, fought back in deep stretch to nail the Hong Kong superstar Romantic Warrior, who had sailed to the lead at the head of the homestretch, the winner’s share of $20 million on the line.
The chances of a second straight spine-tingling Saudi showdown? Not great. The chance that Forever Young wins another Saudi Cup on Saturday? Very strong.
Forever Young has returned for a third time to King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh as an odds-on favorite to win his third Saudi race. Two winters ago, he captured the Saudi Derby 10 weeks before barely missing in the Kentucky Derby. Last year, sapped by his duel with Romantic Warrior, he went on to Dubai and lost a $12 million Dubai World Cup that on the merits he should have comfortably won.
Likely owing to that failure, Forever Young’s trainer, Yoshito Yahagi, has tweaked the horse’s schedule, eschewing an interim race in Japan after the Breeders’ Cup Classic to bring Forever Young fresh into the Saudi Cup. He breaks from post 6 under regular rider Ryusei Sakai and faces 13 rivals, including five shippers from America, in a one-turn, 1 1/8-mile contest that Forever Young will not lose if he shows up.
The first Thoroughbred stakes on the card, the Saudi Derby, has a scheduled post time of 9 a.m. Eastern, the Saudi Cup set for 12:40 p.m.
Five-year-old Forever Young has won 10 of 13 starts. His only defeats are a third in the Derby, a third in the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Classic, and the Dubai loss last April, another third. Remarkably, Forever Young has raced only six times in Japan, logging roughly 50,000 air miles while raking in purses worth nearly $20 million. The winner’s share of the Saudi Cup would push his earnings to almost $30 million, behind only Romantic Warrior – still active in Hong Kong – among the highest-earning Thoroughbreds.
Forever Young, by Real Steel, came out running as a 2-year-old, but Yahagi has guided the horse to ever higher levels, and Forever Young arrived at Del Mar last fall looking like an absolute tiger. The horse, at no cost to his finish, has enhanced his early and middle pace, pushing a hot tempo in his Classic win, and should race prominently from the start Saturday.
Nysos, at least in terms of the betting, heads the American group, which lost a key player when Magnitude contracted a minor illness just as he was scheduled to ship from New Orleans. Even an in-form Nysos probably can’t handle Forever Young, though the Saudi Cup’s one-turn, nine-furlong configuration suits the horse.
Nysos, the mount of Flavien Prat, worked hard to defeat his Bob Baffert-trained stablemate Citizen Bull in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, and on Dec. 28 won the Grade 2 Laffit Pincay Jr. Stakes by a mere head over another Baffert horse, Nevada Beach, who also runs in the Saudi Cup. The brilliance Nysos showed at ages 2 and 3, and early in his 2025 campaign faded as last year wore on, and he has no hope against Forever Young at anything less than his peak.
Four-year-old Nevada Beach has raced only seven times and has more upside than 5-year-old Nysos, but where Saturday’s race stands as Nysos’s main goal, Nevada Beach after this start heads to Dubai, where the 1 1/4-mile World Cup, a two-turn contest, might prove a better fit.
The Brad Cox-trained Bishops Bay also has been pointed directly at the Saudi Cup since Saudi connections bought the horse for $1.3 million at a November auction. Prudently spotted, Bishops Bay won 6 of 8 starts during 2025, capping his campaign with his most important tally, in the Grade 2 Cigar Mile on Dec. 6. His rateable miler’s speed should serve him well Saturday, but Bishops Bay chunked home sixth in his lone Grade 1 start and never has beaten a horse as fast as Nysos – much less Forever Young.
The other Americans, Banishing and Rattle N Roll, are deserving longshots, and, honestly, it’s a longshot that anyone other than Forever Young wins the $20 million Saudi Cup.
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