Breeders' Cup Filly-Mare Turf: Lady Eli, Seventh Heaven top 16 pre-entries

A group of 11 Grade 1 or Group 1 winners, led by Flower Bowl winner Lady Eli and Irish raider Seventh Heaven, were among 16 pre-entries announced Wednesday for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.

Although the race drew an overflow cast, resulting in longshots Pretty Perfect and Kitcat being chosen as alternates by the Breeders’ Cup Selection Committee, it appears doubtful that they will be excluded from the race, provided the connections of Alice Springs, Photo Call, and Spectre stick to their initial preference to race those fillies in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Lady Eli, who recovered from laminitis and a subsequent 15-month layoff to return to racing this summer, looms the likely favorite after a close second in the Ballston Spa at Saratoga before a wide victory over Sentiero Italia in the Oct. 8 Flower Bowl at Belmont Park. She is also proven at Santa Anita Park and in the Breeders’ Cup, having won the Juvenile Fillies Turf there in 2014.

Seventh Heaven, a two-time Group 1 winner this year, is one of three pre-entries to the Filly and Mare Turf by trainer Aidan O’Brien, though he seems unlikely to run more than two in the race. O’Brien cross-entered a number of his pre-entries throughout the Breeders’ Cup card, though with Alice Springs being unraced beyond a mile, her participation in the 1 1/4-mile Filly and Mare Turf would appear improbable.

His other pre-entered filly, Pretty Perfect, the first alternate, also would be assured a starting position in the field if Alice Springs goes in the Mile.

Seventh Heaven, fifth in the British Champions Filly and Mare Stakes at Ascot over “good” ground Oct. 15, is expected to benefit from racing over the usual firm conditions over Santa Anita’s newly planted, quick-playing turf course, having recorded her flashiest victory over ground rated “good to firm” in the Yorkshire Oaks this summer. That day, she handily defeated eventual Arc winner Found.

Seventh Heaven is the second favorite in future-book wagering among British bookmakers.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2016: Pre-entries, odds, comments, and more

O’Brien isn’t the only trainer with more than one pre-entry, with Chad Brown putting Lady Eli and Beverly D. Stakes winner Sea Calisi in the race. Sea Calisi was third most recently in the Flower Bowl.

The Filly and Mare Turf has largely belonged to Brown in recent years, with victories in three of the last four runnings: Zagora (2012), Dayatthespa (2014), and Stephanie’s Kitten (2015).

Other notable pre-entries include Avenge, who won the Rodeo Drive over the same course and distance as the Filly and Mare Turf on Oct. 1; the 3-year-old Catch a Glimpse, a winner of 8 of 10 turf starts seeking to rebound from a seventh-place finish in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland on Oct. 15; E.P. Taylor winner Al’s Gal; Sentiero Italia, the Flower Bowl runner-up; and Japanese invader Nuova Record.