Breeders' Cup Clocker: Midnight Bisou shows she's ready for Distaff

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The first local appearance of nearly two dozen European contenders for this year’s Breeders’ Cup, a group that included Arc winner Enable and defending BC Turf winner Talismanic, highlighted Monday’s five-hour training session at Churchill Downs. Also featured were impressive-looking breezes by top contenders Midnight Bisou (Distaff) and Yoshida (Classic).

The weather was again unseasonably chilly with the turf course still rated less than firm on Monday, conditions that would suit the Europeans just fine if they continue for this year’s Breeders’ Cup races here Friday and Saturday.

Midnight Bisou and Yoshida have made good appearances here over the past week and neither did anything to change those impressions with their maintenance-type works Monday.

MIDNIGHT BISOU was the first of the two to breeze shortly after 6 a.m., doing the typical Steve Asmussen five-days-out-from-the-race kind of thing, but with an atypical gallop-out to punctuate the move. Midnight Bisou cruised a half-mile in 49.22, completing her final quarter in 24.06, going easily with ears pricked at the wire. She was then allowed to continue another strong quarter-mile into and around the clubhouse turn, getting five-eighths in 1:03.34 before pulling up six furlongs in 1:18.23. She appears to be going into battle Saturday against her nemesis Monomoy Girl in top form.

YOSHIDA worked during the special 15-minute training session reserved for Breeders’ Cup starters each morning at 7:30 a.m. The Woodward winner warmed up for the breeze in the manner followed by just about all workers from Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott’s barn: jogging a good six furlongs or so before stopping and walking briefly prior to heading toward the pole. And like Midnight Bisou about 90 minutes earlier, he was well within himself throughout, posting splits of 12.51 and 24.41 en route to completing four furlongs in 49.53 and showing terrific energy for a full quarter-mile on the gallop-out, covering five-eighths into the clubhouse turn in 1:02.87 before pulling up three-quarters of a mile in 1:16.78. This was an excellent addendum to a more serious and very impressive drill here one week earlier.

The turf course was busy Monday morning, with approximately a dozen Euros getting their first feel for it. The lone worker, however, was the Brazilian-raced QUARTETO DE CORDAS, who has been sent to trainer Ian Wilkes to compete in one of the toughest events on the Breeders’ Cup card, the 1 1/2-mile Turf. Quartelo de Cordas had turned in just an okay breeze over a very boggy strip here last Friday, and was only slightly improved over the firmer ground this morning, going five furlongs around the dogs in company in 1:04.68 while working a bit harder to finish inside his mate.

While ENABLE’S first local appearance was much anticipated, she was barely visible to most railbirds, heading right from the Lukas gap located near the six-furlong pole up the mile chute, where she jogged for several minutes before promptly returning to the barn. That routine was followed by an appearance by stablemate Roaring Lion, who will make the final start of his amazing career in the Classic.

Trainer Andre Fabre reportedly rarely trains his turf horses on the grass, but because of some quarantine restriction he did just that Monday with TALISMANIC and WALDGEIST, major contenders for the Turf. Both seemed to handle the going well, cantering once around the grass course, although Waldgeist did get a bit warm despite the temperature struggling to get over 50 degrees at the time.

Among the gallopers who caught the eye during the morning was THUNDER SNOW, who showed a very high energy level moving along at nearly a two-minute clip out near the center of the track, having obviously bounced back nicely from his seven-furlong work several days earlier.