Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint: Ways and Means must prove she's not just a horse for course
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – On paper, Ways and Means clearly looms the horse to beat, although she will have some questions to answer and obstacles to overcome when going postward the heavy favorite against 12 rivals Saturday at Keeneland in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
Ways and Means will bring a two-race winning streak into the seven-furlong Filly and Mare Sprint, including a dominant 5 1/2-length triumph in the Grade 1 Ballerina on Aug. 29. She also owns a decided speed-figure edge over the majority of her competition, having already posted six triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures, topped by the 111 she registered for her 7 3/4-length victory in the 2025 Bed o’ Roses.
But some skeptics point to the fact that six of Ways and Means’s seven career wins, including both the Ballerina and Bed o’ Roses, have come at Saratoga. They suggest that perhaps she will not reproduce those types of efforts when racing over the Keeneland surface for the first time in the Filly and Mare Sprint.
“Obviously, it’s an unknown. I don’t have a crystal ball,” trainer Chad Brown said when asked what he expected from his mare in her Keeneland debut. “But I’m pretty confident that her record in Saratoga is due to her training up there over the Oklahoma, not so much her affinity for the main track. Look at her race in the Gallant Bloom a couple of years ago. I shipped her there from Saratoga, and she ran great. I think she just wants to run off that track.”
Brown was referring to Ways and Means’s four-length victory in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at Aqueduct during the fall of her 3-year-old campaign.
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Brown’s biggest concern may actually be that Ways and Means will break from the inside, in post 2, in an 13-horse field loaded with speed.
“It’s a tricky post, Flavien [Prat] is going to have to work it out,” Brown said. “The key is she has to break good out of the gate, get a forward spot, and can work out a trip without getting stopped.”
Ways and Means finished fifth, beaten 1 1/4 lengths, as the tepid favorite as a 3-year-old in the 2024 Filly and Mare Sprint. Brown believes she’s a much better horse returning in this event two years later.
“The horse is in great form, a picture of health, has never looked or trained better,” he said. “She’s a far better horse than when I ran her in this race two years ago.”
Bob Baffert is one of three trainers who will send out two starters in the Filly and Mare Sprint, along with Saffie Joseph Jr. and Michael McCarthy. The Baffert duo is led by Grade 1-winning 3-year-old Explora, who will be facing older horses for the first time Saturday.
Explora, another who has never raced at Keeneland, posted a career-best 97 Beyer cruising to a five-length victory in the Grade 1 Test on Aug. 8 at Saratoga. She disappointed six weeks later at Churchill Downs when finishing second as a prohibitive 1-5 favorite in the Grade 3 Dogwood, missing by a head to Conceit after hooking up in a suicidal early speed duel with Movie Night.
“The last race I didn’t train her very hard for it, she drew the one hole, it was like a match race early, and that other filly [Conceit] came and beat her,” Baffert said. “But we have a great post now [11]. I know she’s stepping up against older mares, but she’s doing as well as I can have her. If she brings her ‘A’ game and some of the others don’t, she can win. That’s how you got to look at it.”
Baffert also will run Nooni, a Grade 3 winner as a 2-year-old who has captured a pair of allowance races since returning off a long layoff earlier this season.
“She was a little rusty coming off the shelf, but her last race was good. She came out of it well and is going in the right direction, so we’ll take a chance,” Baffert explained.
Joseph won the 2024 Filly and Sprint with the late-running Soul of an Angel, who rallied from last to spring the upset as a 19-1 outsider. He will try to do it again this time around with a pair of speedsters, R Disaster and Kerry’s Kiss.
R Disaster is the only horse to defeat Ways and Means this season, beating her 2 1/4 lengths after going gate to wire to win the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff on May 2 at Churchill Downs, earning a career-best 103 Beyer in the process. It was a number she matched when using similar tactics to post a popular 1 1/4-length triumph earlier this month in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at Belmont Park.
Kerry’s Kiss is perfect in three starts since being purchased privately, joining Joseph’s barn and turning back to one-turn races. Each of those victories came at Gulfstream Park, including the Grade 3 Princess Rooney on Sept. 12, when she upset the 6-5 Simply Joking to earn an automatic fees-paid berth into the Filly and Mare Sprint.
Although both horses have had the majority of their success when racing on the lead, Joseph feels each can be tractable if need be.
“I don’t think either filly necessarily needs the lead to win,” Joseph said. “And I think ultimately their strategy will be dictated by their posts and how they break.”
R Disaster drew post 4, and Kerry’s Kiss starts from post 8 on Saturday.
Simply Joking will be joined by her McCarthy-trained stablemate Look Forward in the Filly and Mare Sprint. Simply Joking is multiple Grade 1-placed but winless in three starts going seven furlongs. Look Forward was a Grade 2 winner at 3 but has made just one start in 2026, finishing second returning from a 13-month layoff in the Open Mind Stakes last month at Churchill Downs.
The remainder of the field includes the recently Grade 2-placed Praying; multiple stakes winner Foie Gras; Majestic Oops, turning back in distance off a steady diet of two-turn races; Evanescence, winner of the Grade 2 TCA Stakes here in her most recent start; Sweet Azteca, who brings a four-race winning streak spread over two seasons into the race; and 2025 Test winner Kilwin.
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