2021 Breeders' Cup Mile: Space Blues begins stud career on high note
DEL MAR, Calif. – Space Blues isn’t soaring off into the ether, but his connections hope the horse’s definitive win Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup Mile will help launch his stallion career.
Space Blues, a Godolphin homebred, ended his career with his best race, a half-length score over Smooth Like Strait, who had set a modest Mile tempo and fought to the wire. Space Blues covered the distance in 1:34.01 and earned a 106 Beyer, though what matters now is not the characteristics of his racing performance on the day but how breeders view his conformation, pedigree, and the entirety of his career.
By Dubawi, out of Lucifer, by Noverre, Space Blues is a compact model who once was thought to be a middle-distance horse but found his niche racing over shorter trips in long sprint races in Europe and Dubai. Trainer Charlie Appleby, who also won the Turf on Saturday and the Juvenile Turf on Friday, didn’t view Space Blues as a true miler in Europe, where races generally play longer than in America when run over the same distance. But he thought Space Blues would relish a two-turn mile on a flat American track, and Appleby was proven correct.
Smooth Like Strait used his speed to bound clear and set the pace, holding second by a full length over third-place Ivar despite losing a shoe at some point during the race, according to trainer Michael McCarthy.
McCarthy, who won the Filly and Mare Sprint with Ce Ce, lavished praise on Smooth Like Strait’s durability and consistency – and with good reason. Well-beaten when he made his career debut in a dirt sprint, Smooth Like Strait never has been worse than fourth in 18 grass starts, and in 14 of them he has finished first or second. In his last 10 races, all Grade 1s or Grade 2s, his record is 3-6-1 and those seven defeats, remarkably, have come by a combined margin of less than 1 1/2 lengths.
McCarthy said Smooth Like Strait will race again in 2022 and came out of Saturday’s start in good condition, but there are no set plans for an upcoming race schedule.
Ivar broke from post 13 and wound up getting a decent trip under Joe Talamo, finishing with good energy and going one place better than his fourth in the 2020 BC Mile at Keeneland. Ivar had an interrupted 2021 campaign and could be a very useful horse in 2022, though he will not race again this season, Paulo Lobo said.
Fourth-place Raging Bull has been retired, according to trainer Chad Brown, as has fifth-place Got Stormy, her trainer, Mark Casse, posted on social media.
Sixth-place Pearls Galore heads back to Ireland on Monday, but whether she races in 2022 or is retired as a broodmare is uncertain, trainer Paddy Twomey said Sunday morning. Blowout, who pressed the pace and faded to 11th, has been retired, Brown said, while 12th-place Vin de Garde, who is based in Japan, will remain in California and fly directly from here for a start in the Hong Kong Mile next month.
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Checking in last of 14 Saturday was 3-1 second choice Mo Forza, who got bopped by a horse on his outside just after the start and was slammed by Raging Bull on his inside, causing him to fall to the back of the field.
“I’m disappointed we got eliminated at the start,” trainer Peter Miller said. “He’s a horse that’s usually fourth, fifth and he was last next to last. It might’ve knocked the wind out of him as well.”
Mo Forza came out of the race in good condition, Miller said, and no plans have been made for a 5-year-old horse who could come back to race in 2022 or be sent to stud.