As a teenager, James Doyle would invite his friends around to his house to watch the Breeders' Cup meeting. "I remember seeing Tiznow win the Classic [in both 2000 and 2001]," he said here on Tuesday. "We couldn't drink in those days, but we got stuck into the popcorn."
Eleven years later, Doyle, now 24, will have a much more immediate Breeders' Cup experience on Saturday evening, when he rides Dundonnell, the favourite, in the Juvenile Turf, and his first sight of Santa Anita convinced him that it will live up to his youthful expectation.
"I wanted to get out here earlier than most of the other jockeys and familiarise myself, as I've never been here before," Doyle said. "When I pulled up into the car park, I saw the mountains and all the horses everywhere and the sun was beginning to rise and the backdrop was amazing."
This has already been a breakthrough year for Doyle, who considered giving up his riding career in 2010 when it seemed to have stalled, but has been progressing rapidly since joining Roger Charlton, Dundonnell's trainer, last year. In March, he steered Charlton's Cityscape to victory in the Dubai Duty Free on World Cup night at Meydan, one of the richest turf events in the calendar, and now he has a live chance to bookend the campaign in a million-dollar race at the Breeders' Cup.
"To have a horse with a live chance is massive," Doyle said. "It was tough at times earlier on in my career, but I never lost confidence in myself. If you don't think you're the best, how can you expect other people to think that? But it was quite hard to take. I've improved a hell of a lot since riding for Mr Charlton and over the last couple of years, but I wasn't that bad before, it was just about getting the break.
"I think it will benefit Dundonnell to be racing around a couple of turns. He's quite a highly strung horse, so you have to keep a lid on him early in a race and a couple of turns gives you a chance to get him relaxed and get a bit of cover."
Dundonnell may be the best chance of a British-trained winner at this year's Breeders' Cup, although the European challenge as a whole includes horses like Excelebration, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner, and Freddy Head's Moonlight Cloud, who run in the Mile, and Shareta and St Nicholas Abbey, who will contest the Turf. Richard Hannon also saddles a likely favourite for Britain in Sky Lantern, who runs in the Juvenile Fillies' Turf on Friday.
European-trained horses could be the main danger to Dundonnell too, in the shape of Aidan O'Brien's George Vancouver and Artigiano, who runs for Godolphin.
"I had a look at the track this morning and it's going to be fast, so you need a horse with a turn of foot that can also break well and get a position on the turn," Doyle said. "But the Europeans all have to improve [to beat us], even if we don't, and he's been improving all year. If he improves again, then he's going to be a major player."
Dundonnell jogged gently around the turf course on Tuesday morning, while other European challengers to go out onto the track included the French-trained Moonlight Cloud, Shareta and Ridasiyna, who runs in the Filly & Mare Turf, the penultimate race on Friday's card.
It was a relatively chilly early morning at Santa Anita, but as soon as the sun rose above the mountains, the temperature started to climb under a typically cloudless sky. It was hard to believe that another part of the same country was in a state of emergency as a result of superstorm Sandy, but, had this year's Breeders' Cup been staged at Belmont Park in New York, as once seemed likely, it would surely have been washed away.
As it is, several New York-based horses, including Todd Plethcher's Shanghai Bobby and Dreaming Of Julia, the favourites for the Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies' respectively, have been unable to travel to the west coast as yet. Both are expected to make the trip on Wednesday, along with Wise Dan, the second-favourite for the Mile, who is stabled in Kentucky and whose arrival has also been delayed.
