Breeders' Cup Mile: Difficult to find the favorite, nevertheless a winner
From Circus Maximus on the fence to Raging Bull out in the parking lot, the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile brims with tough, hardened, fast middle-distance turf horses.
Eight American-based milers line up against six overseas invaders in a deep, deeply confounding Mile. How volatile could the Mile betting market become? Ivar, who won the Shadwell Turf Mile last month at odds of 14-1, was installed as the 4-1 favorite on the track’s morning line.
North American-based horses have won 22 BC Miles, international raiders 14, and the Europeans, while lacking star power, have come in force this year. Rail-drawn Circus Maximus finished fourth in the 2019 Mile at Santa Anita when he was in better form than he brings to this year’s race. Ryan Moore is tasked with working out a trip from the inside for trainer Aidan O’Brien, whose litany of Mile defeats runs long.
O’Brien brought a second horse in Lope Y Fernandez with a sneaky chance and a world-class jockey of his own, Frankie Dettori. Lope Y Fernandez doesn’t quite stay a mile served up European style, but has a flashy burst that could be deployed to good use racing around two turns in America. So far this season, Lope Y Fernandez hasn’t even raced around one turn, with all his starts coming down a straightaway.
In the Irish 2000 Guineas, Lope Y Fernandez zoomed from last to first, only to be trampled in the late stages by Siskin, who’ll have his career finale in the Mile. Siskin added a solid third-place finish in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes, a race in which Circus Maximus set the pace and held second. Siskin’s only other 2020 start yielded a tame fourth-place finish Sept. 6 in the one-mile Prix du Moulin de Longchamp.
Siskin harbors demons, and they fluttered into his pre-race comportment before the Moulin, compromising performance. A similar event occurred last year at 2, causing the colt to be scratched at the starting gate. On his game, Siskin fits the race for first-time Breeders’ Cup trainer Ger Lyons, who landed not only his first classic win this year, with Siskin in the Irish 2000 Guineas, but his second, when Even So won the Irish Oaks.
Lyons, in fact, never has run a horse in any North American race, nor has John Quinn or Jason Hart, the trainer and jockey of Safe Voyage. At age 7, Safe Voyage has hit the best form of his life and sustained it all season, coming here after a close third in the seven-furlong Prix de la Foret. The venerable gelding runs turns well, is tactically versatile, and can prove a Mile factor.
Victorious in the Foret was mighty mare One Master, set to contest her second BC Mile, having finished fifth at Churchill in 2018. One Master found herself trapped inside on the worst part of the Churchill turf course in that race, and performed admirably to stay on.
She has not lost anything during intervening seasons. Following her foray to the Foret, she was back home in England with a fine third in the British Champions Sprint. That Oct. 17 race came only 13 days after the trip to France, and now One Master, owned by Americans Roy and Gretchen Jackson, has shipped overseas. She is hearty enough to handle it all.
Kameko is as capable as any of the Europeans, and in four one-mile races he has two wins – including a victory in the English 2000 Guineas – a second, and a tough-luck fourth in the Sussex, where Kameko got buried on the fence and never found his way out. Ace jockey Oisin Murphy rides for trainer Andrew Balding.
Uni leads the Americans, and were she to reach into the past and pull out her best 2019 form, she could win the Mile for the second year in a row. Uni, one of three Chad Brown-trained entrants, hit dizzying heights last fall when she won the First Lady over the Keeneland course and streaked home at Santa Anita in an electric Mile score. Everything has been more difficult this year for 6-year-old Uni, who had early season training interrupted by a mild setback, and ran decently but far below her best swinging back into action in the Grade 1 Just a Game in June.
Uni looked like she might be ready for life as a broodmare flopping home fifth in the Fourstardave at Saratoga, but Brown kept the faith and Uni regained her spark, zipping past favored stablemate Newspaperofrecord to win her second First Lady. It was a step in the right direction, but Uni must take another one to win again while drawn wide in post 12.
Even farther outside in post 14 is stablemate Raging Bull, who would drop to the back of the field and come with his late run regardless of post. Brown has called Raging Bull a tough horse to ride, and Raging Bull needs a strong pace to set up his kick.
Brown’s third entrant is Digital Age, who runs a distance as short as a mile for the first time since narrowly winning the Columbia Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs 17 months ago.
Digital Age figures to struggle to quicken with the fastest-finishing Europeans, and if he would prefer a slightly longer trip, so would the horse he nipped in the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic over 1 1/8 miles at Churchill, Factor This. A pace factor if nothing else, Factor This is 5 for 7 this season with North America’s top turf Beyer Speed Figure, 110. He’ll come blasting out of post 13, trying for the lead, and should have company from Halladay, a sharp front-running Fourstardave winner who had to be scratched from the Shadwell Turf Mile last month because of a leg infection, since resolved.
Which brings us to the top American hope, Ivar, a Brazilian-bred who made his first three starts in Argentina, where he was 2-year-old champion in 2019. Ivar displayed a dazzling turn of foot winning his lone Argentine turf start by six lengths, but when trainer Paulo Lobo began racing Ivar in blinkers earlier this year, the colt changed styles, going forward in the early stages.
Ivar performed admirably in two blinkered starts, but Lobo thought his horse could find more, took the blinkers off for the Shadwell, and was proved correct. Ivar, looking like his best Argentine self, settled and quickened like a blur beating some good horses, like Raging Bull. Now, there are better horses, and jockey Joe Talamo must find his way home from post 11.
“I think it’s going to be a very beautiful race to watch,” Lobo said, and about this, as with the blinkers, he is probably spot on.