2021 Breeders' Cup Mile: Del Mar's tight turf course custom-made for Got Stormy
It seems like six years ago that the fillies Uni and Got Stormy finished one-two in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita. A global pandemic, we’ve come to find, will do that – stretch and bend time outside the ticking of clocks and turning of calendars.
It really was six years ago that trainer Mark Casse won the BC Mile with a filly, Tepin, heroine of the 2015 renewal at Keeneland. And at Del Mar’s only Breeders’ Cup, in 2017, it was Casse again, taking the Mile with World Approval.
World Approval and Tepin are long since retired. Uni finished fifth in the 2020 BC Mile at Keeneland. Got Stormy was fifth in that Breeders’ Cup, too, cut back to 5 1/2 furlongs for the BC Turf Sprint. But Got Stormy has persisted and is one of three Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series winners – along with Smooth Like Strait and In Love – expected to start Nov. 6 in the BC Mile at Del Mar.
Got Stormy’s Win and You’re In victory came Aug. 14 at Saratoga in the Fourstardave Stakes, her first Grade 1 score since the Matriarch in December 2019. Got Stormy, a 6-year-old, won the 2019 Fourstardave, finished second in the 2020 renewal, and clearly thrives during summers at Saratoga. Her other three starts this spring, summer, and fall? Not so great: fifths in the Distaff Turf Mile and the Jaipur and a sixth last out in the Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs.
But Casse is convinced Got Stormy can turn in a contending performance at Del Mar.
“With her, it’s all about sharp turns,” Casse said. “She runs turns like you wouldn’t believe.”
Staying balanced and handy on the turns will be pivotal in the BC Mile over a tight Del Mar course with a short homestretch. It’s the kind of configuration that best suits Got Stormy, which is why Casse believes she can run back to her Fourstardave when it counts most.
“The only reason I sprinted her in the Breeders’ Cup last year was because I knew she couldn’t get a mile at Keeneland the way the turf was there,” he said. “Last time at Kentucky Downs, I just needed somewhere to run her. I didn’t want to run in New York, and I didn’t want to run at Keeneland. That race was just too fast for her, but she came out of it well and has been training really well. She’ll need to bring her ‘A’ game to have a shot in the Mile, but the scenario works for her.”
Top Euros will take a pass
The Mile seems likely to overfill when pre-entries are taken but will go without either of the star European milers who raced Oct. 16 in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot.
The undefeated 3-year-old Baaeed beat Palace Pier by a neck in the QE II, but despite the fact his connections regularly say Baaeed is best suited to firmer turf courses like those in America, he won’t race again in 2021, though he’s expected to return for a 2022 campaign.
Palace Pier seemed likely to be retired after the QE II, based on statements co-trainer John Gosden made as far back as August, and his retirement to stud was confirmed Wednesday.
Lady Bowthorpe, third in the QE II, has been retired to become a broodmare, and fourth-place finisher The Revenant is a soft-ground specialist unsuited to American racing. Fifth-place Mother Earth, however, is expected to come to Del Mar and race either in the Mile or the Filly and Mare Turf for trainer Aidan O’Brien. Mother Earth fell too far behind a slow pace in the straight-course QE II and finished just as fast as the top two home. Also possible for the Mile is QE II seventh-place finisher Master of The Seas, who likely disliked a turf course softened by race-day rain.
Charlie Appleby trains Master of The Seas for Godolphin, and the same connections also have Space Blues, electric winner of the Oct. 3 Prix de la Foret over a very soft course at Longchamp and the possible Mile favorite. The Foret runner-up Pearls Galore also is intended for the Mile, while O’Brien has other candidates for the race, among them the 2020 Mile winner Order of Australia.
◗ Casa Creed, winner of the six-furlong Jaipur Stakes, part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, will be pre-entered with first preference for the BC Mile, according to part-owner Lee Einsidler, whose nom de course is LRE Racing.