Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf: Blue Bolt has the class but is untested going long
:quality(75))
Breeders’ Cup races typically offer horses a chance to do what they do best at the highest level. This year’s Filly and Mare Turf falls into a different category.
Several of the pre-entrants in the $2 million Filly and Mare Turf, including standout miler Blue Bolt, have never raced as far as 1 3/16 miles, the Filly and Mare Turf’s distance at Keeneland. Starting in England, Ireland, and France this year, Blue Bolt has gone 6 for 6, the last four in Group 1 competition. She’s one of the stars of this Breeders’ Cup.
Blue Bolt at her best finishes testing one-mile contests like a horse who will stay 9 1/2 furlongs over a course that’s tight by European standards, but “like” is not the same as “is,” and Blue Bolt, in addition to traveling much farther than ever before, must race farther than ever before.
Provided Diamond Necklace starts in the Turf, her connections’ first preference, Blue Bolt goes favored in the Filly and Mare Turf. Andrew Balding has trained a barrage of top-level winners this year but has saddled only two Breeders’ Cup runners. Jockey Colin Keane has ridden only two Breeders’ Cup races.
Fourteen can start in the Filly and Mare Turf and 17 were pre-entered, but if Diamond Necklace and Survie – whose connections also have the Turf as first preference – come out, Stellify and Evershed get in.
Classic Q and Lush Lips finished one-two earlier this month in the Grade 1, one-mile First Lady at Keeneland, yet both are entered with the Filly and Mare Turf preferred over the Mile. Classic Q especially seems better suited to a shorter distance, while Lush Lips comfortably captured the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup going 1 1/8 miles at Keeneland last fall. Lush Lips was rising to the top of her division early this year before injury cost her several months. She cost herself victory in the First Lady, sticking her hooves in the ground and losing concentration after making a brilliant move to lead in upper stretch.
The other major European, Precise, hardly is proven at the distance, either. Scratched sick from the Juvenile Fillies Turf last year at Del Mar, Precise never had raced beyond one mile until Oct. 4, when she finished second with a less-than-ideal trip in the Prix de l’Opera, a Group 1 at Longchamp.
The other Europeans, Red Letter and Jancis, rate at least a level below Blue Bolt and Precise, though Jancis finished a close third in the E.P. Taylor at Woodbine last month.
Gimme a Nother, a South African import, won the E.P. Taylor and runs in the Filly and Mare Turf for Maryland-based trainer Graham Motion, who won the 2010 renewal with Shared Account.
Chad Brown has trained a record four Filly and Mare Turf winners and sends out North America’s leading hope, Kathynmarissa, a two-time Grade 1 winner this year. Kathynmarissa probably doesn’t rate much below the top Europeans – and we know she gets the distance.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.