Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint: Ce Ce retraces hoofsteps in attempt at repeat victory
LEXINGTON, Ky. – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
One year ago, Ce Ce used one-sided victories in the Princess Rooney at Gulfstream Park and the Chillingworth Stakes at Santa Anita as stepping-stones to her 2 1/2-length victory in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
Trainer Michael McCarthy saw no reason not to put her on the same schedule in 2022, and Ce Ce looked every bit as good, winning the same two races in equally dominant fashion as a prelude to defending her title Saturday at Keeneland in the $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint.
Unlike in the Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar a year ago, when there were only five runners in the race, due in large part to the imposing presence of odds-on favorite Gamine, the 2022 edition attracted a very strong and far more balanced field of 13. Ce Ce could face her sternest tests from likely favorite Goodnight Olive and a pair each from Hall of Fame trainers Bill Mott and Steve Asmussen. Mott sends out Frank’s Rockette and Obligatory, and Asmussen runs the 3-year-olds Echo Zulu and Wicked Halo.
The seven-furlong Filly and Mare Sprint will also include Chain of Love, Japan’s only entrant on this year’s Breeders’ Cup Card; 2021 runner-up Edgeway; last-out Grade 1 winner Chi Town Lady; the speedy duo of Hot Peppers and Slammed; and late-running longshot Sterling Silver.
Ce Ce benefited from a perfect trip in the 2021 Filly and Mare Sprint when she rated off a hotly contested pace, with Gamine dogged right from the outset by Bella Sofia. Ce Ce rallied wide into the stretch, ran down the tiring leaders to move clear after six furlongs, and was never seriously threatened thereafter.
Ce Ce, a homebred daughter of Elusive Quality owned by Bo Hirsch LLC, has captured three of her six starts this season, including the seven-furlong Princess Rooney by 6 1/2 lengths and the 6 1/2-furlong Chillingworth by 2 1/4 lengths. She sandwiched those wins around a fifth-place effort in the Grade 1 Ballerina at Saratoga.
“Just put a line through the Ballerina,” said McCarthy. “I think she’s just as good this year coming into the Breeders’ Cup as last year. Maybe even a little better. It’s a bigger field this time – a very competitive race. Like with all my Breeders’ Cup runners, I just hope she shows up to her race as good as she can, she breaks clean, and gets a good trip from there.”
Goodnight Olive comes into the Breeders’ Cup on quite a roll for trainer Chad Brown, having won her last five starts by a combined margin of 29 1/2 lengths. She won the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap at Saratoga by 2 3/4 lengths in her stakes debut on Aug. 28, and has been trained up to the Filly and Mare Sprint. She has had six works over the past five weeks, the last four at Keeneland, where she launched her winning streak with an easy maiden win a year ago.
“We’ve gone to great lengths to really give her some extra TLC to get her through a lot of problems through the years,” Brown said. “She’s always had that ability since she was young. I had a lot doubts with some of those stoppages if she would be able to show her true potential. Often times, horses when they suffer injuries along the way, they may make it, but they never reach their full potential, what they were meant to do.”
Brown said he hopes the pace is as honest as it projects to be on paper.
“She’s shown the ability to rate,” Brown said. “If there’s good pace in front of her, it will work out good for her. I wouldn’t want her too far away.”
Frank’s Rockette has certainly peaked at the right time, having earned triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in her last three outings, including a career-best 104 for her six-length triumph in the seven-furlong Pink Ribbon at Charles Town. That victory snapped a frustrating string of four consecutive second-place finishes, three of which came in graded stakes.
“She’s the kind of filly who cycles around, and she’s at a very good level right now,” said Mott. “Not only her last race. She’s run some big races and just got beaten, too, in graded stakes. And while she’s done most of her running at six furlongs, she’s been very effective at seven-eighths.”
Frank’s Rockette figures to be forwardly placed and is the perfect complement to her stretch-running stablemate Obligatory, who finished a troubled third in the Ballerina, 4 1/4 lengths behind Goodnight Olive. Obligatory became a Grade 1 winner in May, rallying from nearly a dozen lengths off the pace to win the Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs.
“Obligatory is more pace dependent, but she’s really good right now, too,” said Mott. “My main concern with her is whether she’s as good over this track as she is at Churchill. With the two of them, we have it covered at both ends, one who can be close up and one who can come running if the pace is legit.”
Echo Zulu and Wicked Halo have combined to win 10 of their last 11 starts. Echo Zulu was perfect in four outings at 2, earning the Eclipse Award for champion 2-year-old filly with an easy 5 1/4-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. She’s won the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks and Grade 3 Dogwood at 3, with her only loss in seven lifetime starts a fourth-place finish when trying to go 1 1/8 miles for the first time in the Kentucky Oaks. Echo Zulu is perfect in two tries going seven furlongs, adding the Dogwood to her easy victory in the Grade 1 Spinaway at Saratoga in September of 2021.
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“She’s a one-turn filly,” said Asmussen. “She’s extremely fast. I think seven-eighths is ideal for her. I love how she ran in the Dogwood. She’s as sharp as she can get. She’s truly a special filly.”
Echo Zulu and Wicked Halo both are facing older females for the first time. Asmussen doesn’t see that as necessarily a negative.
“With 3-year-olds, you have room for improvement, whereas with the older ones, are they as good as they were?” Asmussen said. “This is the crossroads and sometimes it is good to be the 3-year-old.”
– additional reporting by David Grening
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