Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf: Sun Goddess heavily favored but no lock
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – If this is the best renewal of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, as some suggest, that owes greatly to the presence of Sun Goddess, perhaps the best 2-year-old filly the great Aidan O’Brien has trained.
A loud, aggressive English racing-television personality pushed the reserved, diplomatic O’Brien on this point during a Tuesday morning interview. O’Brien hemmed – “she’s special” – and hawed – “probably could be” – before, swallowing the words under his breath: “Yeah, she is.”
Sun Goddess already has started eight times, winning six, and has captured three Group 1s – the Phoenix and Cheveley Park over a straight six furlongs, and the Moyglare Stud over a straight seven. O’Brien referenced Johannesburg’s 2-year-old campaign in 2001, when he won the Phoenix, the Prix Morny, and the Middle Park – all sprints – before landing a fourth Group 1 on a different continent, switching to dirt in the 1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
“He probably wasn’t as scopey as this filly,” O’Brien said – meaning that he fully expects Sun Goddess to perform just as well in Friday’s two-turn mile as in her straight sprints.
“She looks very unique in everything she does,” he said. “She has a big, long stride. If they go a very high tempo she has loads of speed, and a lovely mind.”
All that, and Sun Goddess is not a mortal lock in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf, which drew 14 entrants for the field’s main body with three also-eligibles. The first of those, Silent Beauty, gets into the race because Go for Launch, drawn in post 2, was injured Tuesday and will be scratched, trainer Kevin Attard said.
Silent Beauty makes eight European shippers in the race, which also includes graded stakes winners from New York, in Domestic Agenda; California, in Vanta; and Kentucky, in Serenas Ghost.
Sun Goddess, Ryan Moore named to ride, breaks from post 8 as the 6-5 morning-line favorite. And in a standard Juvenile Fillies Turf edition, Europeans like Green Empress, Alwaysanangel, and Curracloe would feel like more serious win candidates than they do – not just because of Sun Goddess, but because of the France-based filly Amusingly.
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Amusingly’s trainer, Francis-Henri Graffard, only seems to win every Group 1 race in France. In truth, his 2026 tally stands at nine, the two most recent on Oct. 4, when Daryz (now retired) won his second Arc and Amusingly landed the Jean-Luc Lagardere. And it’s Amusingly who possesses the best chance to defeat Sun Goddess.
Amusingly can’t approach Sun Goddess’s sparkling résumé. She’s raced just three times, debuting in June at a relatively minor track, Compiegne, and jogging to a three-length maiden score. Amusingly laid low until Sept. 5, when she got knocked sideways a quarter-mile into the Group 2 Prix d’Aumale at Longchamp, recovered to take a clear midstretch lead, only to get nailed on the wire.
Connections decided that as much as anything, the Aumale’s one-mile distance had cost Amusingly victory. Maybe. The trouble counted for something, Amusingly hadn’t raced in 10 weeks, and she finished more than three lengths in front of third-place Data, who returned Oct. 4 and was second in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac for 2-year-old fillies. Amusingly didn’t show up there. Instead, Graffard cut her back to seven furlongs, and Amusingly, looking like a star, flew home to defeat colts in the Jean-Luc Lagardere. And not just any colts: Runner-up Folsom Blues had won a Group 1 by six lengths and is 7-2 for the Juvenile Turf on this card.
Amusingly might not stay a demanding European mile, but she should get one mile over two tight American turns and a relatively short homestretch. Expect jockey Colin Keane to drop her toward the back and try to get onto Sun Goddess’s tail at some point.
Sun Goddess has won five in a row, and Green Empress, the Boussac winner, got closest to her during the skein, second by three-quarters of a length in late June. Sun Goddess might have been toying with Green Empress to some extent that afternoon, but the margin between them isn’t as wide as the 6 1/2 lengths separating the fillies Sept. 13 in the Moyglare Stud. Green Empress didn’t look quite like herself over wet turf, and trainer Joseph O’Brien confirmed that course conditions dampened her performance. Sun Goddess, by Saxon Warrior, lacks brilliant sprint speed – no coincidence her first Group 1 came in the one-mile Boussac.
“We did think that she would be better at the mile, and she was,” O’Brien said. “She comes here in very good shape.”
Green Empress breaks from the rail under Dylan Browne McMonagle, while a second Joseph O’Brien runner, Alwaysanangel, leaves from post 5 with Oisin Murphy on her back for the first time in a race. Alwaysanangel in her four starts has wins against maidens and listed-stakes foes and missed by three-quarters of a length in July to Libertango and Senorita Bonita, two of the top juvenile sprinters in Europe, and was a creditable third last out in Sun Goddess’s Cheveley Park. Slow from the gate, Alwaysanangel has done all her racing from far behind the leaders.
“She’s been running at six furlongs and steps up in distance, and I think tactically it could be much different race,” O’Brien said. “But she is a closer, and we don’t want her too close – that’s the way she runs. We could have gone in the sprint but decided to go out farther.”
Curracloe lacks seasoning and looks like a somewhat physically immature filly, but she has done everything right starting her career with two wins against lesser if competent competition in Ireland.
Joseph O’Brien trained Citrus Springs when she won the Juvenile Fillies Mile at Kentucky Downs, after which she took up residence in Miguel Clement’s barn at Belmont Park.
“I’m still getting to know her,” Clement said. “In the morning she’s very straightforward, good looking, easy, and a good mover.”
Domestic Agenda, 2 for 2, is the top East Coast shipper. She won the Miss Grillo by more than four lengths, yet still seemed a green horse figuring out her racing. Her trainer, Chad Brown, has won this race a record six times. Brown said Domestic Agenda lacks the electric turn of foot some of his best juvenile fillies have possessed, and that she’ll need the right trip to win. That could prove tricky from a wide draw.
Serenas Ghost and Seneca Park finished one-two in the Jessamine here Oct. 2, but both look less brilliant than California-based Vanta, who has yet to face serious competition but is undefeated with eye-catching closing runs in her three starts.
“I’ve never been around a horse like her, period, and to have a 2-year-old filly like her – she’s got a mind like an older horse,” trainer Jeff Mullins said. “She’s got the ability to do whatever you want with her. I could put her on the lead if I wanted to.”
How high is Vanta’s ceiling?
“We’re going to find out,” Mullins said.
In this Juvenile Fillies Turf, they absolutely are.
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