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'Let's paint the town purple.' Lexington Breeders' Cup World Championship organizers hype the November event

Pierre-Charles Boudot, sits atop Audarya after winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf horse race at Keeneland Race Course, in Lexington, Ky., Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Michael Conroy/AP
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AP
Pierre-Charles Boudot, sits atop Audarya after winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf horse race at Keeneland Race Course, in Lexington, Ky., Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

The Breeder’s Cup World Championship will be coming back to Keeneland for the third time this November — but only the second time with fans in attendance.

Breeders’ Cup Classic winning trainer Brad Cox had glowing words to describe the premier horseracing event.

"It's an international feel and an international flair," Cox said Thursday. "It's the best throughout the world, turf and dirt."

And while planners are promising a week of activities, world-class cuisine, and high fashion starting on Sunday, October 30, and running through the championship on November 4 and 5, the big hope is that the event will look more like Keeneland’s first go-round seven years ago.

"It will most definitely mirror more like 2015 than we did in 2020 for obvious reasons, but we're going to bring the music back and food back to town," festival chair Kip Cornett said.

That festival atmosphere will depend to some extent on the state of the pandemic — which kept fans from attending on site in 2020 — but Cornett says he wants to see the city once again embrace the event, especially downtown.

"That's where our guests stay. That's a natural gathering spot for the city, but we're also going to take advantage of a lot of new entertainment venues that have come online," he added.

Tickets go on sale Monday, May 9 at noon at BreedersCup.com/tickets.

Josh James fell in love with college radio at Western Kentucky University's student station, New Rock 92 (now Revolution 91.7). After working as a DJ and program director, he knew he wanted to come home to Lexington and try his hand in public radio.