Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies: Tamara settles while the others battle
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Tamara gets to be a couch potato this weekend, watching television on the monitor trainer Richard Mandella has set up in her stall at Santa Anita.
Well, there’s really no tube – but there is plenty to watch.
Between this Friday and Saturday, there are three Win and You’re In stakes for next month’s Grade 1, $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Tamara, who is training up to the championship race on Nov. 3 at Santa Anita, is the early 5-2 favorite on David Aragona’s line for Daily Racing Form.
Her connections will get a chance to learn more about the competition with the running of the Grade 1, $600,000 Alcibiades on Friday at Keeneland, and with Saturday’s lineup of the Grade 1, $400,000 Frizette at Aqueduct and the Grade 2, $200,000 Chandelier at Santa Anita.
“We’ll have a look at them,” Mandella said.
Tamara is unbeaten in two starts, her latest a 6 3/4-length win in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante on Sept. 9. For the effort, she earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 91.
“She was very courageous in her maiden win and I thought she just looked like she was in her own league in the Debutante,” Mandella said of the homebred for Spendthrift Farm.
The next test will be two turns, and Tamara could have run over the 1 1/16-mile distance of the Juvenile Fillies in the Chandelier. But right now, it’s a quiet time for the daughter of Hall of Fame racemare Beholder.
“She’s got a little bit of a cough,” Mandella said. “It’s not any big deal. She wouldn’t have run anyways. We’re going to train up to the race.”
Beholder made her two-turn debut for Spendthrift and Mandella in the 2012 BC Juvenile Fillies and won that year at Santa Anita. Mandella feels comfortable with the added ground awaiting Tamara.
“I don’t see it being any big concern,” Mandella said. “She’s very smart and handles well, so I think we just get her there in the best shape we can, and it will go well.
“It’s only one more turn,” he quipped.
Mandella said Tamara will have a least a few more works leading up to the Juvenile Fillies. She will be ridden by Mike Smith.
Brightwork – another unbeaten Grade 1 winner – makes her two-turn debut in the Alcibiades. She’s won four races, her most recent the Grade 1 Spinaway on Sept. 3 at Saratoga.
“We’re going for the Juvenile Fillies and we want to make sure we can handle the two turns,” trainer John Ortiz said of the start Friday. “Every challenge brought up to her she’s handled with ease, not only her maiden race, but the Debutante, the Adirondack, then going seven furlongs in the Spinaway. Seven furlongs is a [difficult] distance for any horse, let alone a 2-year-old. We’re very pleased that in every race she’s been able to defeat her foes.
“She’s extremely smart, and it starts from there. Anything you ask of her she does. She waits for her direction. She’s a very tactical horse – what we in racing call a push-button horse.”
Ortiz has starters in two other Win and You’re In stakes Friday at Keeneland, with Top Gunner bidding for a BC Sprint berth in the Phoenix and Crown Imperial seeking to advance to the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf in the Jessamine.
Cox, who won the Juvenile Fillies in 2019 with British Idiom, has a pair of prospects for this year’s renewal that are entered in the Alcibiades in Alpine Princess and Emery, but Emery will be redirected to the Frizette. Alpine Princess and Emery are both coming off maiden special weight wins at Saratoga. Emery won her debut by more than five lengths in a six-furlong race Aug. 30 that went in 1:09.80.
“She’s a filly that showed us a good bit at Churchill in the morning prior to taking her to Saratoga,” Cox said. “It gave us confidence to ship up. Her performance was on a wet track. I feel confident she can stretch out and do it on a fast track. She’s a young filly that I hope will take us where we want to go.”
Alpine Princess is a daughter of Classic Empire and the Curlin mare Le Moine, and she won her maiden in her second start Sept. 3.
“She’s a nice filly, won going seven-eighths at Saratoga,” Cox said. “I think she’s meant to go two turns, based on pedigree and based on how she trains.”
The Frizette is also expected to draw Saratoga maiden winners Just F Y I and Life Talk, while the Chandelier is the anticipated landing spot for Laurent and Gate to Paradise, who finished a respective second and third to Tamara in the Del Mar Debutante. Both races were to be drawn Wednesday.
◗ Tamara owns the second-highest Beyer Speed Figure among all 2-year-old fillies this year, with her 91 just a point below the 92 that Field Lass put up winning a maiden special weight sprint Sept. 28 at Churchill.
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