Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf: Shorter distance a key factor
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – The distance of the Grade 1, $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf varies from year to year, depending on the configuration of the turf course at the host track.
This year, the 1 3/16-mile distance at Keeneland is too short for one major would-be contender and yet still too long for another. War Like Goddess, the top female distance runner over turf in North America, and Regal Glory, arguably the top filly-mare turf miler, will face male rivals when being diverted to different Breeders’ Cup races (the Turf and Mile, respectively), assuming both exit their final preps this weekend in top shape.
With that, the race seems wide open. A couple of 3-year-old fillies from the United Kingdom, Nashwa and Above the Curve, are early favorites on the Daily Racing Form line and will try to keep Chad Brown from his extending his Breeders’ Cup record of four wins in the Filly and Mare Turf.
Nashwa, trained by John and Thady Gosden, and Above the Curve, trained by Joseph O’Brien, were the respective two-three finishers last Sunday in the Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp. Several other European fillies are under consideration, including Place du Carrousel, the upset winner of the Opera, Dreamloper, and the Paddy Twomey pair of Pearls Galore and Rosscarbery.
Brown will run three-time Grade 1 winner Regal Glory in the Grade 1 First Lady on Saturday at Keeneland, prepping the 6-year-old mare for the Mile. But he still has at least three hopefuls for the Filly and Mare Turf in Technical Analysis, In Italian, and Virginia Joy, a powerful tag team that accounted for all the major divisional races this summer at Saratoga. Technical Analysis was an odds-on winner of the Grade 2 Ballston Spa, In Italian won the Grade 1 Diana, and Virginia Joy upset War Like Goddess in the Grade 2 Flower Bowl.
In Italian also runs in the one-mile First Lady, which is not a designated Win and You’re In toward the Breeders’ Cup.
Other notables missing from the roster of probable starters are the Irish Group 1 winner La Petite Coco and Beverly D. winner Dalika, a non-BC nominee pointing instead to the $350,000 Fall Harvest going a mile on the Nov. 5 undercard. Team Valor president Barry Irwin said the shorter distance does not favor La Petite Coco.
Brown’s prior Filly and Mare Turf wins came with Zagora (2012), Dayatthespa (2014), Stephanie’s Kitten (2015), and Sistercharlie (2018). The race was first run in 1999 at Gulfstream Park.
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