Breeders' Cup Distaff: Top 3-year-old fillies training at Churchill

Kentucky Oaks winner Monomoy Girl, a four-time Grade 1 winner who would lock up a divisional championship with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, is training toward that challenge at her home base of Churchill Downs. But she isn’t the only 3-year-old filly from a talented crop based at the Breeders’ Cup host track.

Familiar foes Midnight Bisou and Wonder Gadot have both impressed on the work tab beneath the twin spires recently. If all three meet in the Distaff, it would be the third time this season.

Midnight Bisou finished second in two starts as a juvenile, beaten a nose by Dream Tree both times. Meanwhile, Wonder Gadot emerged with a versatile 2-year-old campaign as a Grade 2 winner on dirt, Grade 3 winner on synthetic, and a Grade 1-placed winner on turf.

Dream Tree, at one time considered a leading Kentucky Oaks candidate, was sidelined by injury; she has since returned to remain unbeaten and has been routed toward the Filly and Mare Sprint. With her benched, Midnight Bisou emerged as the leading Oaks candidate from California with three graded stakes wins, including the Santa Anita Oaks, by a combined 10 1/4 lengths. Wonder Gadot went winless during four starts in prep season, including a three-length loss to Monomoy Girl in the Fair Grounds Oaks, but was beaten less than a length in her other three outings.

The trio converged for the first time in the Kentucky Oaks, with Monomoy Girl outbattling Wonder Gadot by a half-length at the wire and Midnight Bisou finishing 4 1/4 lengths back in third. As the top two came down the stretch together, they made contact near the wire. John Velazquez, aboard Wonder Gadot, claimed foul, but it was disallowed.

“I’m very proud of her,” trainer Mark Casse said after the race. “She’s definitely a Wonder Woman.

“The filly that won ran very game and came back. There was contact, and it made our filly switch leads. It was going to be really close.”

Midnight Bisou subsequently was transferred from Bill Spawr to trainer Steve Asmussen and won the Mother Goose at Belmont by six lengths in her first start for her new barn. She spent the rest of the summer racing in Grade 1 company at Saratoga, finishing second to Monomoy Girl by three lengths in the Coaching Club American Oaks and third in the Alabama Stakes to Eskimo Kisses.

Wonder Gadot made her next three starts in her native Ontario, defeating males in the Queen’s Plate and Prince of Wales, the first two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown. But rather than going for the sweep, or contesting the Alabama against her own sex, she faced top-level colts in the Travers Stakes and never fired, finishing 10th.

The three fillies met most recently in the Cotillion Stakes, a Grade 1 event on Sept. 22 at Parx Racing. Monomoy Girl, who changed paths twice in the stretch, led Midnight Bisou to the line by a neck but was disqualified for interference. Wonder Gadot was 10 1/2 lengths behind in third.

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“Tough to win like this, lose like that. We’ve all been there, but that being said, she deserved to win the race,” Scott Blasi, assistant to Asmussen, said. “She’s an extremely gutty filly and shows up every time. We are just so proud to have her in our barn, and she stepped up and has a great constitution and definitely ran her best race.”

After a brief freshening following the Cotillion, Wonder Gadot returned to the work tab last Friday at Churchill Downs and fired a half-mile in 47.80 seconds, the second-best of 51 works at the distance that morning. Four days later, Midnight Bisou turned in her second work since the Cotillion, going five furlongs in 1:01.20, the second-fastest of 50.

But their road to the Distaff still goes through Monomoy Girl. In her second work since the Cotillion, she went five furlongs in a minute flat, the bullet for last Saturday.

“She put her workmate away at the eighth pole, and there were some horses working in front of her, and she was definitely a little more focused,” trainer Brad Cox said. “Sometimes she does lose focus when she gets clear of other horses. I think she showed that in the Cotillion.”

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