Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint: Yuugiri finds her best game at one turn
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It isn’t as if Yuugiri came from nowhere to emerge as a contender in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
After all, she did win the Grade 3 Fantasy around two turns last year after placing in three stakes, two of them graded, around two turns.
But it’s been as a sprinter that Yuugiri has reached her full potential, and she proved she’s for real after denying the rock-solid Wicked Halo last Saturday in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes, a “Win and You’re In” for the Filly and Mare Sprint.
“I know her races going two turns were nice,” said trainer Rodolphe Brisset, who notched his first career Keeneland stakes victory. “I think that her speed and her big heart carried her around in the Fantasy. She got to the lead and speed made that race.”
Brisset hearkened back to Yuugiri’s career debut at 2, a 7 1/4-length win in a Churchill Downs maiden special weight at six furlongs, as a determining factor in bringing her back this year as strictly a sprinter.
“How fast she ran going one turn, for a trainer who doesn’t really have a horse cranked first time out, it was a no-brainer for me to cut her back and see if it’s what she wants to do,” Brisset added.
Brisset still must confirm Yuugiri’s Breeders’ Cup participation with her owners, but mentioned that the filly came out of the Thoroughbred Club of America “in good shape.”
“She’s an easy shipper, but she’s not a really easy horse to train,” Brisset said. “We’d try to do something light [at Santa Anita] and bring her in fresh.”
Both Brisset and jockey Flavien Prat were impressed with the grit Yuugiri showed in the Thoroughbred Club of America.
“She was really game,” Prat said in a televised interview broadcast by Keeneland after the Thoroughbred Club of America. “When Wicked Halo went by us and took the lead, it felt like she wasn’t done yet and she was just getting going.”
The Filly and Mare Sprint field is still in flux due to the likelihood of potential race favorite Echo Zulu also being pre-entered against males in the Sprint.
Trainer Steve Asmussen also has Wicked Halo and Society as Filly and Mare Sprint contenders, and Echo Zulu’s Beyer Speed Figures stack up very well against the boys.
Goodnight Olive continued her Breeders’ Cup preparations with a half-mile workout Monday at Belmont for trainer Chad Brown. Last year’s Filly and Mare Sprint winner breezed in 48.34 seconds, fourth fastest of 55 at that distance.
The other “Win and You’re In” event last week was Gulfstream’s Grade 3 Princess Rooney Invitational. Three Witches pulled off the upset, besting favored Grade 2 winner Maryquitecontrary by a half-length.
“She showed some hints of ability,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said in a post-race interview broadcast by Gulfstream. “It was a big step up in class today. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s going to need to improve again” in the Breeders’ Cup.
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