Elmont, NY -- (Sports Network) - Curlin, 2007 Horse of the Year, will attempt to garner his second consecutive victory in Saturday's $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. A win in the 1 1/4 mile race is worth $450,000 and would make Curlin the first $10 million horse in thoroughbred history.

The two-time Eclipse Award winner will face eight challengers with a victory giving the winner automatic entry into the Breeders' Cup Classic. Curlin has drawn post five with Robby Albarado in the saddle.

Trained by Steve Asmussen, Curlin currently has career earnings of $9,796,800, second to all-time leader Cigar's record of $9,999,815. Skip Away is third with $9,616,360.

"That would be an outstanding achievement," assistant trainer Scott Blasi said about Curlin earning more than Cigar. "Cigar was an unbelievable horse. One of the goals from early in the year was to beat Cigar's record. To win this race for a second year in a row and to be compared to those horses would be a great honor."

Owned by Stonestreet and Midnight Cry Stables, Curlin won the Gold Cup last year as a three-year-old and began a streak of five straight stakes victories. The streak was stopped when the colt was second on the turf to Red Rocks in the Man o' War Stakes.

"He tends to come around in the fall," continued Blasi, "and he's pretty sharp right now. He loves the cool weather."

Curlin has won seven of his last eight starts, including last year's Breeders' Cup Classic and Dubai World Cup. Overall, he has 10 wins in 14 races.

If Curlin repeats in the Gold Cup, he will be the eighth horse to win back-to- back runnings of the event. The last horse to achieve the feat was Skip Away, the winner in 1996 and 1997. The other two-time winners were Mad Hatter (1921-22), Dark Secret (1933-34), Nashua (1955-56), Kelso (1960-64), the mare Shuvee (1970-71), Slew o'Gold (1983-84) and Crme Fraiche (1986-87). Firethorn won in 1935 and in 1937.

Mambo in Seattle, trained by Neil Howard, is expected to be the second favorite in the nine-horse field. The three-year-old is coming off a second place finish to Colonel John in the Travers Stakes.

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Edgar Prado picks up the mount since Robby Albarado is committed to ride Curlin. The pair will start from the far outside post.

"We understand what a tall order it is to go against a champion like Curlin," said Howard, who won the Jockey Club Gold Cup in 2003 with Mineshaft. "And it is always a big step up when a three-year-old goes up against older horses. We had the Super Derby in Louisiana as an option, but we had a feeling that Mambo in Seattle would love Belmont Park and would love to train here. Plus, it gave us another week after a tough race like the Travers."

Owned by Mrs. William Kilroy and William S. Farish, Mambo in Seattle has won three of six starts this year, including a minor stakes victory at Saratoga, for $323,229. He lost the Travers by the smallest of margins after a rally from 11th.

Here is the complete field for the Gold Cup in post position order: Ravel, Rafael Bejarano; Merchant Marine, Cornelio Velasquez; Timber Reserve, Kent Desormeaux; Wanderin Boy, Alan Garcia; Curlin, Robby Albarado; Angliana, Rajiv Maragh; A. P. Arrow, Ramon Dominguez; Stones River, Gabriel Saez and Mambo in Seattle, Edgar Prado.

The Jockey Club Gold Cup will be televised live on ESPNEWS. It will be the 10th race on an 11-race card, with a scheduled post-time of 5:52 p.m. (et).