Breeders' Cup 2026: Europeans come in loaded for 2-year-old races
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Breeders’ Cup loves showcasing internationality. Friday’s 2-year-old turf races provide a great opportunity.
Nine of the 12 pre-entered horses selected into the Juvenile Turf Sprint field are based overseas. So are six of the 14 in the Juvenile Fillies Turf, and nine of 14 in the Juvenile Turf. The international runners – almost entirely Europeans in the 2-year-old races –have been coming in droves and winning en masse.
A European colt has won the Juvenile Turf the last five years, and Euros have run one-two in three of the last four years. A European filly won the Juvenile Fillies Turf the last two years and three of the last four, and even the Juvenile Turf Sprint, in early days a race that favored North Americans, has been swarmed by Europeans. They finished two-three last year but ran one-two in 2024 and 2022 and one-two-three in 2023.
At the last Keeneland Breeders’ Cup, in 2022, overseas shippers won all three Friday races. They might do so again.
Juvenile Turf Sprint
If New York-based Brickyard Belle doesn’t find a way through traffic, a Euro sweep of the top three placings is very much in play here.
That Libertango is the “best” European in this race seems indisputable – best in the sense of having consistently hit the highest level while facing the highest-level competition among this group of seven. Which is not the same as “best suited to winning this race.”
Her Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot, where she beat 24 foes, stood out in replay review. Libertango had more than 20 of them ahead of her with no more than two of this race’s six furlongs remaining, and even when she found her best stride, Libertango had too much traffic to navigate and seemingly couldn’t possibly win. Yet it’s not like she barely got up – Libertango was home by one full length over the mighty Sun Goddess.
She comes with this run, or something close to it, every time. Even in her debut, Libertango appeared to move through the race with great purpose. Only Sun Goddess, the Juvenile Fillies Turf favorite, and Senorita Bonita, probably the second-best 2-year-old filly sprinter in Europe, have beaten her. And both losses came at Newmarket, which has an uphill finish and plays longer than the actual distance. One theory might hold that Libertango will benefit cutting back to 5 1/2 furlongs on a flat track.
Libertango, as with nearly all these sprinters, has only raced down a straightaway, but that concerns me less than how she goes about her business. The filly always breaks slowly and takes up a position at the rear of the field, which means that in addition to negotiating a turn for the first time, she’ll need to find a way through a forest of foes. She does quicken with enough power to get up in time, even working with a homestretch that’s short by overseas standards.
Moonrise could not be more different than Libertango, and while she has not hit a level as high, she’s talented enough to win. Moonrise was not highly regarded earlier in the summer. She was 5-1 debuting on the all-weather at Kempton Park and 66-1 second out in the Windsor Castle at Royal Ascot. Not sure how she lost, as the winner has not come close to validating his performance that day.
Moonrise breaks like an American sprinter, fast, and possesses loads of speed. She won the one race, the Princess Margaret Japan Cup, where her jockey took a hold and tried to rate her off the pace. She assented to that, but unwillingly, pulling hard enough to take some starch out of her finish. Moonrise has never been sharper than in the Sirenia back at Kempton over the all-weather, a really eye-catching performance. And in the Cheveley Park – that uphill finish over a straight six furlongs at Newmarket again – she got embroiled in a wicked speed duel with Sun Goddess’s pacemaker.
Force Noir also possesses sufficient talent to at least finish in the top three. He, too, has early speed and generally has raced forwardly, but unlike Moonrise, he ran to form in his one try from off the pace – and unlike Moonrise, he was far off the pace. Whether by design or because of a slow break, Force Noir raced from last two starts ago in that Dundalk allowance. What was he even doing in a lower-level race like that? Well, racing left-handed, for one thing, and if connections were eyeing a Breeders’ Cup start, the turning experience could come in handy. I can see no obvious excuse for his Royal Ascot dud, but his Middle Park on Sept. 26, where the very good Orthodox had to work to nail him in the final jumps, says Force Noir could win.
Velozee, who is a big girl, probably is not quite good enough but holds at least a little appeal, if for no other reason than she still seems a work in progress and has done some good things in most of her starts. She does have a measure of early pace but has been ridden from a variety of positions, presumably as a teaching tool and to figure out what she does best. They seem to have settled on holding her up and coming with one run, and the last two six-furlong starts suggested a shorter distance at Keeneland can help the filly.
Hell of A Spin, to his credit, has run his race in all five starts – it’s just that his race is not good enough to beat the best here. He’s had his chances, no terrible luck preventing him from showing up, and unless American racing improves him a couple lengths, he’s not good enough.
Neither was Mussab – at least until his most recent start. Mussab comes from different background than the other Euros, a five-furlong sprinter rather than six. The colt has progressed all year, racing more professionally and determinedly with each start. The ratings systems loved his performance last out in the Cornwallis. I could not find a reason to rate it that high.
Final Objective and Crownbreaker ran one-two last out in the Flying Childers at Doncaster and to me are about the same horse at their best – a horse that’s a cut below the leading Europeans. Crownbreaker ran around a slight bend at Carlisle, but that’s not going to push him into the top three.
Sale Shark has traded decisions with Adonius, who won the Indian Summer on the Keeneland course but needs many defections to make the field. Adonius got a dream pace setup in the Indian Summer, though, to his credit, he adapted beautifully rallying from last after showing early speed overseas.
Juvenile Fillies Turf
This race has never come up so tough.
Sun Goddess brings star power. Six wins in eight starts, already a three-time Group 1 winner, and seemingly bomb-proof. Granted, she went off at even-money facing 19 rivals in the Goffs Million because that’s a sales-restricted race that wasn’t populated by high-class horses, but she got into a world of trouble a quarter-mile out that took some work to navigate – and still won by six lengths.
She won the Group 1 Moyglare Stud over Juvenile Fillies Turf foe Green Empress by an even wider margin and was going away late while racing for the first time beyond six furlongs, silencing skeptics who wondered if she maxed out at three-quarters. Having gone up in distance, she then cut back to six furlongs and defeated Libertango, among the favorites for the Juvenile Turf Sprint, in the Group 1 Cheveley Park. She has speed if required but will comfortably stalk the pace, as she did last out, and despite all those sprints, this race has been the target for a couple of months. Sun Goddess seems almost certain to stay an American-style mile. She has form comparable – but meaningfully better – than Meditate, who came out of a second-place finish in the Cheveley Park and won this race at Keeneland in 2022.
Amusingly has a chance to take down the favorite, though she, too, has a future as a sprinter-miler. A daughter of No Nay Never and an Oasis Dream mare who sprinted during her racing career, Amusingly faced colts last out in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere rather than fillies in the Prix Marcel Boussac on the same card because at seven furlongs, the Lagardere is an eighth of a mile shorter than the Boussac.
I thought Amusingly had stuck her feet in the ground after making a midstretch lead Sept. 6 in the Prix d’Aumale, but connections contended that the one-mile distance got to her. Amusingly had raced just once, some 10 weeks earlier, basically a practice race in the provinces. She might have needed a run in the Aumale, and a less than a quarter-mile into the race, going around the long turn at Longchamp, one of her rivals made a blitz trying to push between Amusingly and the rail. She brushed Amusingly, throwing her off stride and into the flank of the horse just to her outside, and that, understandably, might have lit Amusingly up and kept her from totally settling.
She didn’t settle well early in the Lagardere, either, but eventually came back to jockey Colin Keane, who held her last of 10 until coming out of the false homestretch and into the real one. There is a certain “wow” factor when a horse glides from last nearly to first without being asked – as Amusingly did in the Lagardere. Keane pushed the button and the race was over despite the fact second-place finisher Folsom Blues was coming off a six-length score in an Irish Group 1. Amusingly will race from last, or close to it, at Keeneland, but has such a brilliant blast of late speed that she’ll have a chance to rally in time.
The top two look so strong that a horse like Alwaysanangel, who’d be a major player in a more typical renewal, enters as something of an afterthought. Alwaysanangel is by a sprint sire and out of an unraced mare who has produced sprinters, and she has never raced beyond seven furlongs, but there are signals in her races that she could excel over an American mile.
Her form line through Senorita Bonita and Libertango in the Duchess of Cambridge is top level. She came rushing between them very late, finishing best, and I have in my notes that just in terms of body and stride, she looked less a sprinter than those two fast fillies. Alwaysanangel made an earlier move in the Firville at Cork and looked like she’d win for fun, but it was only after coming under urging that she drew away late. And in the Cheveley Park, Sun Goddess and Libertango out-quicked her going down into the dip, but Alwaysanangel edged closer through the uphill finish.
Green Empress can’t match the brilliance of Sun Goddess or Amusingly, but she appears to be more of a pure route horse than either of them – which might or might not serve her well going one mile at Keeneland. Green Empress clearly needed her debut for seasoning, and second out lost to Sun Goddess by just three-quarters of a length. Two things there: Sun Goddess might have started her run slightly early, and, from way things looked right on the wire and in the gallop-out, Sun Goddess was toying with Green Empress.
That said, the wide margin that separated them in the Moyglare Stud probably overstates the talent gap. That’s Green Empress’s only race on softer footing; she didn’t look entirely comfortable on it. She drew wide in the Boussac and lost ground on the turn but had a class edge on that field, grinding out a solid, if unspectacular, victory.
Curracloe– still another very good-looking filly! From the first crop of the incredible Baaeed, Curracloe in her two starts could not have raced more professionally. She breaks decently, settles beautifully, picks up on command – and has gears, too. Up in class to the Group 3 level last out, she made the lead without being asked while beating a decent horse. Gowran Park, where she debuted, has a fairly sharp bend that comes up a furlong after the start, and the first turn at Keeneland should not take her by surprise.
Scommessa Sicura also runs, though she needed defections to get into the race since Breeders’ Cup didn’t select her to fill one of nine open slots in the field, the other five occupied by Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series winners. This filly has a touch of pace and is Group 2-placed, but nothing in her form suggests she can rise to real contention.
Juvenile Turf
Folsom Blues’s last two defeats, second-place finishes both, came at the hooves of two exceptional fillies, Sun Goddess and Amusingly. He, like many of the European 2-year-olds here, has a pedigree that, at least superficially, slants toward sprints, but while his dam is by Oasis Dream, she appeared to be a miler at heart and has produced offspring of a similar type.
Folsom Blues lost to the fillies because both have more speed than he – not early speed, but simply speed. He couldn’t match their acceleration, and it’s possible something similar could happen here with Great Barrier Reef.
Sandwiched between the defeats, a smashing score in the Group 1 National Stakes, and while that race lacked star power, runner-up Monogram, a Juddmonte homebred, had won his only start and is unexposed, and third-place Florida Bay beat Folsom Blues earlier this season.
Aidan O’Brien’s sons Joseph, who trains this horse, and Donnacha learned lessons well from their legendary father, and one of them is giving young horses lessons while racing them. Folsom Blues’s debut basically was a warm-up. Second time out, they let him lead, to give him that experience and get him a win, and he won easily with a huge gallop-out at Gowran Park. Third out, more lessons: Held at the back of the field, he could not get going in time to reach loose leader Florida Bay, but those three starts served their purpose. Folsom Blues has risen toward the top of his class.
Great Barrier Reef is a much different kind of horse than Folsom Blues. While Folsom Blues went to school over the summer, Great Barrier Reef was winning races. He debuted early, in April, and won the Coventry at Royal Ascot to go 3 for 3, but he still has progressed through the fall and, trainer Aidan O’Brien believes, has enough stamina for an American mile.
Great Barrier Reef has broken well in four of his five races and won’t fall too far off the pace, and the two who beat him in the Dewhurst, an autumn lead-in to the spring classics, are favorites for the big races in May and June. Great Barrier Reef did not have a great trip, either, squeezed and short of room going into “The Dip” in the race’s penultimate section before coming home solidly through Newmarket’s uphill finish.
Man’s Best Friend was 13-1 in the Lagardere but still rated as the O’Brien “A” team there, with Florida Bay about twice the price. The Lagardere marked his first start around a turn and first beyond seven furlongs, and his price rose that high owing to a poor showing in the Prix Morny. I’d put the Morny down to a soft course. Man’s Best Friend never traveled like his standard self at any point and barely lifted his hooves. He aced the Richmond at Goodwood – blocked behind horses until the final half furlong, when one final desperate right-handed move by Ryan Moore got Man’s Best Friend out into the clear and flying home. He ran well in the Lagardere, too, Moore unable to get him out of traffic until midstretch, by which time the top two finishers had a full head of steam on the far outside. Man’s Best Friend did stay on but also appeared to run out of gas 50 yards from the wire.
Haffner has more heft than his stablemate Great Barrier Reef and figures to stay considerably farther than that horse, too. He has a decent amount of pace, but it’s galloping, true-route speed. While not one of the very best O’Brien 2-year-olds this summer and fall, he’s not too far behind and has come along nicely. The National Stakes marked his only race over going less than firm and was his only poor showing – one might link those two bits. He traveled like a winner throughout the Royal Lodge and look comfortable going left-handed on a relatively flat course in the Acomb at York. Would like him more Friday at 1 1/8 miles than one mile.
Avec Toi looks like early developer who peaked in July or August, when he was strolling to easy leads and overwhelming inferior rivals, but the Prix la Rochette on Sept. 6 in retrospect was a tell. There, he went all out to barely beat a colt of no great accomplishment, Imperial Honor, who came back to finish eighth in the Lagardere, where Avec Toi wasn’t much better, running wide in the early and middle stages and flat through the homestretch.
Florida Bay feels like Aidan O’Brien’s third string here. He’s been running in high-level races but leading, probably subtly playing the role of pacemaker, or at least pace-presser, for more highly regarded stablemates. Stayed on better in the Lagardere than he had the race before in the National Stakes but could not come close to kicking home with the top finishers. Expect him to go forward Friday.
Pikachu almost certainly wants to run longer than one mile, as he did last time at Leopardstown in the Golden Fleece, won by Darkness Falls, who came back to capture the Dewhurst. Good form line, but Pikachu finished seven lengths behind Darkness Falls and has been found somewhat wanting at the upper levels.
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