Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf: Brown has outside chance for a repeat
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf has often run through trainer Chad Brown. He won with Maram in 2008, finished second with Watsdachances and Testa Rossi in 2012 and 2013, and then sent out Lady Eli to dominate last year.
This year, if the race runs through him, it might have to be run near the outside fence.
Brown’s two entrants in Friday’s Grade 1, $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland, Pricedtoperfection and Last Waltz, drew posts 11 and 14 on Monday, perhaps reducing their chances of upsetting top North American runners Catch a Glimpse and Harmonize and leading Europeans Alice Springs and Illuminate.
Pricedtoperfection and Last Waltz will move inward one stall in the starting gate – as will the rest of the field– after it was announced on Tuesday that Miss Grillo Stakes winner Tin Type Gal, drawn on the rail, would be scratched. Trainer Graham Motion, in a tweet, said she was “not 100 percent” for traveling to Kentucky.
The one-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf is race 8 on Friday at 4:50 p.m. Eastern.
Even with her move to post 13, the draw could prove particularly difficult for Last Waltz, who came to Brown after four races in Ireland and makes her U.S. debut on Friday. She appears to have neither the early speed to clear traffic nor a powerful enough kick to allow jockey Javier Castellano to let her fall back to the rear to avoid getting hung wide into the first turn.
The poor draw for Last Waltz is sure to dismay horseplayers who put an emphasis on workouts. In a Saturday breeze at Belmont Park, Last Waltz held her own with Watsdachances, a 5-year-old mare who finished second and was placed first in the Grade 1 Beverly D. this summer.
Last Waltz races with Lasix for the first time and without blinkers, which were added for her last start.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 11 Pricedtoperfection and No. 14 Last Waltz. Trainer Chad Brown is 28-3-2-7 with a $0.82 ROI over the past two years in graded stakes turf route for juveniles. – Mike Hogan
Pricedtoperfection is a little better off in terms of post and style. She is a deep closer who figures to make a late run, tactics she used to win a maiden race by three lengths at Belmont Park on Oct. 17 in her second start.
“I always thought of her as one of our better 2-year-old filly prospects,” Brown said.
One of the winners of the draw would appear to be Harmonize, the winner of the P.G. Johnson and Jessamine stakes, who landed in post 7. There, she looks poised to sit a favorable stalking trip behind front-runners Catch a Glimpse and Ruby Notion, who break alongside each other in posts 3 and 4.
Harmonize has shown that she can run well on or near the lead or from as far back as 12th, as she did in winning the Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 7.
“It was uncharacteristic of her style, I would suppose,” trainer Bill Mott said of her run in the Jessamine. “She didn’t leave the gate running, as she normally does, and she looked like she struggled with the racetrack a little bit but was good enough to circle the field and win.”
She can ill afford to not handle the course this time, though it might be similar to the drying-out one she caught in the Jessamine. After rain Tuesday and more expected Wednesday, drier weather was forecast for Thursday and into Friday.
Catch a Glimpse would not be bothered by some cut in the ground. She won the Grade 2 Natalma Stakes on Sept. 12 at Woodbine by five lengths on a “good” course, earning a 91 Beyer Speed Figure, the highest in the Juvenile Fillies Turf field.
“She got an easy lead, but I really liked the way she gave me a good kick turning for home,” said jockey Florent Geroux. “When I asked her to go, she went on really nicely.”
To avoid a speed duel, Geroux might try to place Catch a Glimpse in second early and let stretch-out sprinter and longshot Ruby Notion clear the field.
Alice Springs, a tepid favorite with overseas bookmakers at odds of approximately 4-1, is a candidate to improve with a stretch-out in distance from six- and seven-furlong sprints in England and Ireland. Being a daughter of one of the world’s elite sires in Galileo, she should stay the one-mile distance.
Alice Springs followed a fourth-place finish in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket with a four-length romp in the $455,400 Tattersalls Millions Trophy on Oct. 3.
Illuminate ran second in the Cheveley Park Stakes, three-quarters of a length in front of Alice Springs. Illuminate, who had won her preceding three races, appeared to be making a winning move in the Cheveley Park but was repelled by Lumiere in the closing strides. She could be vulnerable to regression on the stretch-out to a two-turn mile after having made all four of her starts in six-furlong straightaway races.
With Tin Type Gal out of the Juvenile Fillies Turf, the also-eligible Time and Motion draws into the race and will start from the outside.