Breeders' Cup: Juveniles take center stage on Day 1

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The future is now.

An additional Breeders’ Cup race for 2-year-olds plus the clever decision to package all of the now five Breeders’ Cup races for 2-year-olds on one card has produced the inaugural Future Stars Friday for the Breeders’ Cup, highlighted by the Juvenile.

This is the first time the Juvenile will be run on the Friday card. It has been part of the main Saturday card since being the first Breeders’ Cup race ever run, at Hollywood Park in 1984. The Juvenile is always a compelling race, since it usually crowns the divisional champ and produces the winter-book favorite for the following spring’s Kentucky Derby.

This year’s race is particularly engrossing in that it appears to have attracted several high-quality colts, led by favored Game Winner from California and Complexity and Code of Honor from New York. The fact this year’s Breeders’ Cup is at Churchill Downs means the winner will head into the winter already having run over the track where the Derby will be contested six months hence.

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Brad Free, Daily Racing Form’s Southern California-based handicapper, has Game Winner as the 5-2 favorite on his line. Mike Battaglia, who makes the morning line at Churchill Downs, has Game Winner at 8-5.

The Juvenile is the last of the Breeders’ Cup races that will be run Friday. It is race 9 on a 10-race card that begins at 12:55 p.m. Eastern.

There are nine more Breeders’ Cup races on Saturday, concluding with the richest of them all, the $6 million Classic.

There are now 14 Breeders’ Cup races spread over the two days, one more race than in recent years owing to the addition of the Juvenile Turf Sprint, which will be the first of the five Breeders’ Cup races on Friday, going as race 5.

Soldier’s Call is the 7-2 favorite on Free’s line, while Battaglia has Strike Silver favored at 4-1 in the full field of 12.

Trainer Chad Brown has won the Juvenile Fillies Turf four times, including the past two years, and he will be strongly favored to add another with Newspaperofrecord, who is 2-1 on the lines of both Free and Battaglia.

As in the Juvenile, the Juvenile Fillies offers a showdown between the best runners on both coasts, with California-based Bellafina taking on Jaywalk and Sippican Harbor from the East, as well as Kentucky-based Restless Rider and Serengeti Empress. Bellafina is favored at 8-5 on Free’s line, and at 2-1 by Battaglia.

Much as Brown has dominated the Juvenile Fillies Turf, so has trainer Aidan O’Brien in the Juvenile Turf. He has won it four times, including last year with Mendelssohn, all in concert with jockey Ryan Moore. They team this year with the lukewarm favorite Anthony Van Dyck, who is 4-1 on the lines of both Free and Battaglia.

A large, powerful storm was forecast to arrive here Wednesday night and last through Thursday night, according to The Weather Channel. A flood watch for the area was issued Wednesday lasting through Friday morning, and while the weather is predicted to improve Friday, the effects of the storm should be felt most noticeably in the condition of the turf.