Breeders' Cup Distaff: Unlike preps, slow and steady pace might not win the race
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ARCADIA, Calif. – Prep season for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff ended when Idiomatic wired the Grade 1 Spinster on Sunday at Keeneland and cemented her role as early Distaff favorite.
Yet like every major Distaff prep this year, Idiomatic did nothing truly remarkable other than take advantage of an ideal scenario – slow fractions, loose on the lead. Hardly original in a prep season of copycats.
Randomized did the same thing – wire to wire on easy splits – earlier Sunday in the Grade 2 Beldame at Aqueduct. Adare Manor scored a lone-speed romp one week ago in a Grade 2 at Santa Anita. Search Results, likewise, won a Grade 3 last month on easy splits.
The pattern is clear. Idiomatic, Randomized, Adare Manor, and Search Results – top four Distaff favorites on Daily Racing Form’s early odds line – won preps setting slow fractions while virtually uncontested. Something might give when they meet in the Distaff.
Enter longshot Le Da Vida, the Spinster runner-up who has not quite cracked the list of top-10 candidates. But she is on her way to the Distaff for trainer Ignacio Correas, who won the 2019 Distaff the last time it was at Santa Anita. Blue Prize, of course, was already a Grade 1/Group 1 winner. Le Da Vida is not there yet.
“We are not the top level, I know that,” Correas acknowledged. “But I don’t think we are 20 lengths behind. We are four or five lengths” behind.
To be precise, 4 1/4 lengths. That was Spinster winner Idiomatic’s margin over Le Da Vida. In the BC Distaff, Correas will saddle an 8-for-24 late-runner in a field with plenty of pace.
“I think her style might fit the race,” Correas said. “And if by some miracle that day she decides to switch leads, we don’t know what we’re going to find. She switched leads once in her lifetime, and won” – her debut by more than 18 lengths. “She never changed leads again.”
Le Da Vida, Group 1-placed in Chile and the United States, will ship from Kentucky to Santa Anita later this month and is among a handful of closers whose chance at a Distaff upset rests on a fast, contested pace. Other Distaff late-runners include Desert Dawn, Wet Paint, and Clairiere.
The weekend win by 3-year-old Randomized in the Beldame gives trainer Chad Brown two Distaff chances. He also trains 5-year-old Search Results, a Grade 1 winner making the final start of her career in the Distaff. Randomized has won 4 of 6, including an easy 3 3/4-length Beldame victory.
“She kind of strolled around there, which was good that we didn’t have a hard race before the Distaff,” Brown said. “And it was good from the standpoint of she missed a workout a couple weeks ago because of heavy rains.”
The challenge facing front-runner Randomized is to somehow ration her speed against front-runners Idiomatic and Adare Manor. Remember what happened in the most recent Breeders’ Cup in California? In 2021 at Del Mar, a blistering pace in the Distaff helped deep-closing Japan shipper Marche Lorraine rally from next to last. She paid $101.80.
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