Breeders' Cup Distaff: Blue Prize gets final prep before home game

Blue Prize has already won a pair of graded stakes at Breeders’ Cup host track Churchill Downs this season. Blue Prize keeps her eyes on the prize as she travels just up the highway to make her final prep start in the Grade 1, $500,000 Spinster Stakes on Sunday at Keeneland.

“This filly loves it here at Churchill Downs,” trainer Ignacio Correas said. “She’s just improved since we got her from Argentina, and I think she’s getting better.”

Blue Prize, a Group 1 winner in her native Argentina, began racing in the United States last year under Correas’s care. After finishing second or third in her first five starts Stateside – including a pair of seconds at Churchill Downs and a third in the 2017 Spinster – she ended the season with an 8 1/2-length victory in the Grade 2 Falls City Handicap under the twin spires.

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This year, the 5-year-old Pure Prize mare has won 3 of 5 outings. She earned an automatic berth in the Distaff with her victory in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis in June at Churchill Downs. Sshe ran down another locally based runner, multiple graded stakes winner Farrell, for a 1 1/2-length victory.

After that score, Blue Prize took the summer off, as Correas wanted to avoid subjecting the mare to the long van ride in hot weather that the division’s summer contests at Saratoga or Delaware would have required. She returned to the races three months later in the Grade 3 Locust Grove Stakes, edging Champagne Problems by a nose for her third graded stakes score at Churchill.

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Despite the close finish, Correas has no misgivings about running Blue Prize back in three weeks in the Spinster.

“It was not that hard a race,” Correas said. “It was just the last quarter of a mile that she ran hard. It set her up good for this race.”

Not being Breeders’ Cup nominated, Blue Prize requires a supplemental nomination to start in the Distaff on Nov. 3, and once supplemented can receive the Fleur de Lis challenge-race bonus of a free entry and starting fee. Correas said after the Locust Grove that the Merriebelle Stable colorbearer will be supplemented.

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“She’s done so well in all of her starts here and it’s great the Breeders’ Cup is here,” Correas said. “We’re going and we’re excited.”

Others in contention for the Distaff who have shown a special affinity for Churchill include, of course, the pair of Kentucky Oaks winners who are considered the race favorites – this year’s victor Monomoy Girl and last year’s winner and divisional Eclipse Award champion Abel Tasman. Both threw a wrench into the picture by losing their final prep outings – Monomoy Girl via disqualification in the Grade 1 Cotillion Stakes on Sept. 22 at Parx Racing, and Abel Tasman when she ran a shockingly dull fifth in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes last weekend at Santa Anita and was found to be dealing with the effects of an illness that had impacted trainer Bob Baffert’s stable recently. Abel Tasman, who underwent a blood test Monday, remains on target for the Distaff.

“She’s fighting something off,” Baffert said Wednesday. “She had a legitimate excuse. She’ll be all right.”

The Breeders’ Cup picture took another hit recently when multiple Grade 1 winner Elate, who had been under consideration for either the Distaff or Classic, was declared from the race due to a splint issue.

– additional reporting by Steve Andersen