2021 Eclipse Awards: Space Blues

It could not be happening again, and yet it was.

Trainer Charlie Appleby stood on the horse path leading from the racing oval to the Del Mar paddock and for the second day in a row watched one of his Breeders’ Cup runners for Godolphin act up in the gate and get scratched. On Friday, it had been Albahr in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, his last-moment defection salved by stablemate Modern Games’s decisive victory. Now, in the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile presented by PDJF, Master of The Seas misbehaved before the start. He was backed out of the gate, examined by a team of vets, and was scratched, trotting riderless with a pony past Appleby, off the track, and back to the stables.

Yet as with the Juvenile Turf, the Mile left Appleby and Team Godolphin smiling in the end.

Space Blues, the favorite and Godolphin’s major Mile hope all along, got a beautiful trip under William Buick and ran down the classy Smooth Like Strait to win comfortably, vaulting into consideration for an Eclipse Award.

The Mile put an exclamation point on a sustained, excellent career for Space Blues, a Godolphin homebred by Dubawi out of Miss Lucifer, by Noverre, who has been retired to stud for 2022.

:: Full list of 2021 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

The Irish-bred Space Blues had a relatively small niche racing in Europe as horse not quite quick enough for the major straight-course five-furlong sprints that are overseas staples, while lacking the stamina and stoutness to truly see out top-level one-mile European contests. Accordingly, his two European Group 1 wins came in the 6 1/2-furlong Prix Maurice de Gheest in August 2020 and the seven-furlong Prix de la Foret in October 2021.

The Foret was contested over a sodden Longchamp course, and though Space Blues has no issue with firmer, fast-playing grass courses, he skipped athletically over the Longchamp bog. It was an eye-catching performance that showed Space Blues to be in peak form, and Appleby wasted little time afterward declaring his horse a BC Mile candidate. The speed of the Del Mar course, the trainer said, would only help Space Blues, and the short Del Mar homestretch would allow the horse to put to good use his athleticism on the turn and hit the wire before his stamina ebbed.

Once Master of The Seas had been taken off the course, the Mile field reloaded, it all went exactly as planned. Buick had worried the pace would wind up too fast, turning the Mile into a test of stamina more than the dash to the wire he wanted. Instead, Smooth Like Strait set out at a moderate tempo, Space Blues comfortably keeping up, waiting to unleash his sprinter’s speed, which carried him to the most important victory of his fine career.