Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf figures to run through O'Brien barn

The first nine winners of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf mainly fell into obscurity and mediocrity after winning the race. Perhaps the times, they are a-changin’.

Oscar Performance, the 2016 Juvenile Turf winner, is a prime contender in the Breeders’ Cup Mile this year, while 2017 winner Mendelssohn has a fighting chance in the Classic.

What’s not changing is trainer Aidan O’Brien’s prominence in the race. O’Brien trains Mendelssohn, who was his fourth Juvenile Turf winner, and has two key pre-entries among the 22 pre-entrants in the Juvenile Turf. O’Brien, who won the last Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs with Wrote in 2010, pre-entered Anthony Van Dyck and Broome. Reached by phone last week, O’Brien deemed Anthony Van Dyck an unlikely runner in the race while mentioning Broome as a candidate. O’Brien has until Monday to decide whom he’ll send since his Breeders’ Cup horses ship that day from Ireland.

Should both run, Anthony Van Dyck, most recently third in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket, would figure to be favored over Broome, who set the pace and finished second to Royal Marine in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp.

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The two O’Briens are among six Europeans in the 14-horse main body of the field. The other overseas shippers are Arthur Kitt, Line of Duty, Marie’s Diamond, and The Black Album. Line of Duty, a Group 3 winner, is trained for Godolphin by Charlie Appleby, the connections that won the 2012 Juvenile Turf with Outstrip. Team Valor International this fall privately purchased The Black Album, who will be the first Breeders’ Cup starter for French trainer Jane Soubagne before joining the American barn of trainer Rodolphe Brisset.

Current won the Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes earlier this month at Keeneland, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race and is the only Challenge winner in the field. Todd Pletcher trains him as well as With Anticipation Stakes winner Opry, who was among the 13 horses chosen for the field’s main body by the Breeders’ Cup panel charged with ranking pre-entered horses in oversubscribed races like the Juvenile Turf.

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The other North American-based horses chosen by the panel are Forty Under, winner of the Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont; Kentucky Downs Juvenile Stakes winner Henley’s Joy; Zuma Beach Stakes winner King of Speed; Pilgrim runner-up Somelikeithotbrown; Futurity Stakes winner Uncle Benny; and War of Will, most recently fourth in the Bourbon.

The pre-entrants not selected by the panel and ranked in order of preference are Much Better, Louder Than Bombs, Tracksmith, Order and Law, Flying Scotsman, Empire of War, and Pico Entry. Two also-eligibles are permitted in the final entries.

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The Juvenile Turf on Churchill’s seven-furlong grass oval is contested at one mile. It’s reasonable to expect outside posts in such a large field starting so close to a turn to be disadvantageous – and they are. Since 2010, win rates for one-mile Churchill turf races for posts 1 through 6 all are 12 percent or 13 percent, but that rate begins dropping with post 7 and falls for every starting stall farther outside. Posts 11 through 14 during the same period have produced just 14 winners from 274 starts, so the post draw for the Juvenile Turf will be significant.