ARCADIA — The Breeders’ Cup next month in Kentucky will be full of stories about how the contenders reached thoroughbred racing’s fall classic.
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The always-popular category of “rags-to-riches horse” may already have its star.
As trainer Doug O’Neill put it, the rise of the 4-year-old gelding named Listenupshance is “a crazy story.”
Listenupshance, who sprang another mild surprise by winning the Grade II Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Sunday with jockey Emisael Jaramillo, was bought at a yearling auction for just $10,000 and began his ascent by winning a Del Mar maiden race in which he was available to be claimed for $20,000.
That’s not the half of it. Soon after that July 2025 victory, Listenupshance was sold privately to a partnership that included the microshare ownership group Run Fast Racing, founded by music executive Adam Kluger and involving singers Lil Yachty, Lil Wayne and Rauw Alejandro. Eager to give Lil Yachty a taste of victory the first time the rapper planned to go to the races, Kluger asked new trainer Doug O’Neill to find an easy spot for the horse.
O’Neill chose a basement-level $10,000 claiming sprint, expecting to win the race but lose the horse. Unfortunately, or fortunately as it turned out, the race drew an overflow of entries and Listenupshance wasn’t going to get in. As a backup plan, Listenupshance was entered in an allowance-class turf sprint in which he looked overmatched.
He wouldn’t win. But “We’ve got to give Little Yachty the (racetrack) experience,” O’Neill remembered thinking.
He won. At 17-1. And he has kept outrunning his odds.
A photo-finish victory over Maximum Bourbon at nearly 6-1 in the Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar in July earned the son of Shancelot free entry in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at the Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, in Lexington, Ky. The three-quarter-length win over favorite Maximum Bourbon as the crowd’s 6-5 second choice on Sunday gave him an unneeded second entry in the Sprint.
The Santa Anita Sprint Championship was reduced to three horses – March of Time finished third – when 2025 winner Imagination and Ahrens were scratched. The time of 1:08.70 for 6 furlongs, on a sun-baked track, was the fourth fastest in the past 12 runnings of the race. Listenupshance really went faster than that after a sluggish start; Jaramillo said the cotton O’Neill puts in the anxious gelding’s ears kept him from reacting to the gate opening.
“This is a horse that probably shouldn’t be with us still,” said O’Neill, referring to how he nearly risked Listenupshance in a cheap claiming race. “It’s just been incredible. He’s a really fun horse. He just keeps getting better and better.
“He’s just one of those horses that run to their competition. As the waters got deeper, he kept keeping up with the competition. He’s a natural competitor.”
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It’s rags to riches for the horse, though not the owners and trainer. O’Neill is a two-time Kentucky Derby winner and five-time Breeders’ Cup race winner. He played modest in talking about Listenupshance.
“That tells you the inexact science of horse racing, right?,” O’Neill said. “A lot of blind luck. A good horse will do well no matter who’s surrounding him and making dumb decisions.”
The Santa Anita Sprint Championship was one of two Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” races Sunday and one of seven graded stakes on the first weekend of Santa Anita’s fall meet.
Three-year-old Super Corredora and Joel Rosario beat a well-matched field of fillies and mares in the Grade II Zenyatta Stakes at nearly 8-1 to earn a trip to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Little had gone right for the daughter of Gun Runner since she won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar last November, and she’d been off since March. A sharp training job by John Sadler got her ready and almost over problems at the starting gate — she reared before the break Sunday.
“It’s (her) first time against older, and there were some nice horses in there, so I was really thrilled with her effort,” Sadler said.
The 1:42.93 for 1-1/16 miles was the second fastest of the past 10 editions of the Zenyatta.
Racing continues at Santa Anita with a nine-race card Friday at 1 p.m.
The second of two stakes-packed weekends will put 2-year-olds in the spotlight. Entries will be set Monday for the Saturday, Oct. 3 American Pharoah Stakes and Del Mar Debutante.
Inshallah, the $2.1 million son of Flightline who scored a fast debut win at Del Mar wasn’t nominated to the American Pharoah and Sadler said the colt is out for the rest of 2026.
“He has a little shin issue, so you won’t see him until after the first of the year,” said Sadler, but the goal remains “the big 3-year-old races.”
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