2021 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies: Echo Zulu, Grace Adler look to maintain status
Some Breeders’ Cup races are easier to get a line on than others. Typically, the $2 million BC Juvenile Fillies is not one of them, at least not at this early juncture.
The reason: Three critical Win and You’re In preps still remain, and the results of those will go a long way in determining a pecking order of favoritism for the 38th Juvenile Fillies, to be run at 1 1/16 miles on Nov. 5 at Del Mar.
Those races are the 1 1/16-mile Chandelier on Friday at Santa Anita; the one-mile Frizette on Sunday at Belmont Park; and the 1 1/16-mile Alcibiades on Oct. 8 at Keeneland.
As it stands, the winners of the previous round of major preps rank among the top current contenders, although whether they’ll remain as favorites clearly is dependent on their performances in the upcoming round of races. The top two fillies are Echo Zulu, a four-length winner of the Grade 1 Spinaway, and Grace Adler, an 11 1/4-length winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.
Echo Zulu, trained by Steve Asmussen, owns the top two Beyer Speed Figures (90 and 92) among Juvenile Fillies candidates, with both of those earned in Saratoga sprints – an opening-day maiden win and the Sept. 5 Spinaway. She’s likely to be an odds-on favorite stretching out in the Frizette.
Grace Adler, trained by Bob Baffert, also is unbeaten in two starts, albeit with considerably lower Beyers. Her July 31 debut at Del Mar equated to a 68, and her Debutante romp got a 74. She’s favored on the Santa Anita morning line for the Chandelier.
Other top Juvenile Fillies candidates include Hidden Connection, a 9 1/4-length winner of the Pocahontas on Sept. 18 at Churchill Downs, and Electric Ride, whose only start, an eye-catching Aug. 28 maiden romp at Del Mar, has made her the second program choice for the Chandelier.
Other fillies eligible to become major players with big efforts in their final preps include Tarabi, the Spinaway runner-up for Cherie DeVaux; the Todd Pletcher pair of Miss Interpret and Classy Edition, both of them stakes winners already; and Averly Jane, a 3-for-3 Wesley Ward filly yet to race beyond 5 1/2 furlongs.
A whole bunch of fillies also have shown enough in limited prior starts to become Breeders’ Cup contenders by running well in their upcoming preps, including Ain’t Easy, Penny Saver, and maybe a dozen or so more.
The BC Juvenile Fillies was one of the original seven races run at the inaugural Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park in 1984. It’s one of five BC races, all for 2-year-olds, on the Friday, Nov. 5, card.