Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf: Gimme a Nother now fully acclimated

When the Newstead Stable of Steven and Jessica Jell decided to send their star South African filly Gimme a Nother halfway round the world to the American trainer Graham Motion, the hope was to play at the highest level of North American racing. The Breeders’ Cup – that’s about as high as it gets, and that’s where Gimme a Nother will run next for Newstead and Motion, in the Filly and Mare Turf on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.

Will she be favored in the $2 million race? She will not. But Gimme a Nother comes to Keeneland at the peak of her powers, unbeaten in three starts this year, winner last out of the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor at Woodbine, where she defeated, among others, the European horse See The Fire, a possible Filly and Mare Turf starter herself.

Gimmer a Nother made her first seven starts for trainer Mike de Kock in South Africa and never lost. She knocked out Group 1s in her last two races, and none of the 60 rivals she faced during the South African phase of her career came closer than 1 1/2 lengths to her at the finish.

Gimme a Nother raced five times during her first Northern Hemisphere campaign, three times second in Grade 2 company, winner of the Grade 2 John Mabee in September, but a distant seventh in her lone Grade 1 try, the New York Stakes, run over a Saratoga bog two Junes ago. Motion wishes he’d scratched from the New York.

Following her Mabee victory Sept. 5, Gimme a Nother had last year’s Filly and Mare Turf as a goal but injured a splint bone and went out of training. The mare was ramping up for her 2026 campaign at Motion’s base, the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, when in January she presented with nasal discharge. An examination revealed Gimme a Nother had two badly infected teeth that required surgical removal.

“She had this tendency to shake her head. I have to think it had really been bothering her for a while,” Motion said. “I’ve never dealt with that in a horse.”

The dental setback delayed Gimme a Nother’s comeback until June 13, when she smartly won the Grade 3 Eatontown at Monmouth, followed by a game win in the Grade 2 Beverly D. and her Woodbine score in a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race. The mare worked back Sunday and is a better horse than a year ago. The Filly and Mare Turf’s 1 3/16-mile distance suits her, and Gimme a Nother absolutely belongs.

Her improvement, Motion believes, owes partly to the tooth repair, partly to becoming fully acclimated to life in the Northern Hemisphere. Adapting to American-style training might be somewhat simpler for South Africans than Europeans. Motion visited the training facilities of Matthew de Kock, son of Mike de Kock, near Johannesburg and found barns not dissimilar to those in America. Horses are ridden from the stables down a hill to the training area, which consists of grass and dirt ovals, whereupon their exercise rider mounts up for a training session. Motion calls it a blend of European and American training regimens; it’s not all that different, he said, than Fair Hill.

Motion has trained about 10 South Africans. The first wave that came – among them Beach Bomb and Isivunguvungu, who both made it to the Breeders’ Cup – flew from South Africa to America and had to quarantine 60 days with no opportunity for exercise at the Newburgh Animal Import Center in New York. When Gimme a Nother traveled, she quarantined in South Africa, then flew to France and was able to train in Chantilly for 60 days before crossing the Atlantic.

It all has added up to a second winning streak on a different continent than the first – and a start in the Breeders’ Cup.

Prep race roundup

Racing in France and America last weekend had Filly and Mare Turf ramifications. On Oct. 1 at Belmont, Kathynmarissa solidified her standing as the leading American hope for the race with a victory in the Flower Bowl Stakes. Two days later, Classic Q nipped Lush Lips in the First Lady at Keeneland, and while that race was contested at a mile, both horses could come back for the 1 3/16-mile Filly and Mare Turf.

In France, Aventure ran below her par finishing fifth Sunday in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera on the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe undercard but reportedly remains on course for a planned trip to Keeneland. Opera winner Miss Scott seems unlikely to show up, but second-place Precise emerged as a Filly and Mare Turf candidate.

Arc third-place finisher Diamond Necklace could come for the Filly and Mare Turf or the Turf, while Friendly Soul, fourth in the Arc, is possible for the Filly and Mare Turf.

Blue Bolt bolted home an easy winner of the Group 1 Sun Chariot on Saturday in England, and now her connections must choose between the Filly and Mare Turf, at a distance longer than Blue Bolt has been racing, or the Mile, where Blue Bolt would meet males for the first time.