Breeders' Cup Mile: Tepin prepping for title defense
By Sunday, the Breeders’ Cup Mile picture should come into fairly clear focus, with five horses on Daily Racing Form’s weekly top-10 list racing at Keeneland and more action at Santa Anita, which hosts the Mile on its new turf course Nov. 5.
Chief among this weekend’s runners is Tepin, the 2015 Mile winner who has won all six of her starts since last year’s Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland. Tepin runs Saturday in the First Lady Stakes, her first start in three races outside of open competition and inside the United States. In her two most recent races, the Woodbine Mile in Canada and the Queen Anne in England, Tepin beat male rivals.
Tepin, trained by Mark Casse for Robert Masterson, is one of 10 entrants in the one-mile First Lady, and she will be an odds-on favorite to beat likely second choice Celestine, a 4-year-old Bill Mott-trained filly who also could punch her ticket to the BC Mile with a strong showing.
The First Lady lacks the depth of the Shadwell Turf Mile, another Saturday race at Keeneland that drew an excellent 11-horse field, including four current members of the DRF top 10: Mondialiste, Tourist, Ironicus, and What a View.
Mondialiste, an England-based horse, won the Arlington Million this year and the Woodbine Mile last year and was a somewhat-troubled second to Tepin in the BC Mile. Tourist won the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga after finishing a good second in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile to Midnight Storm, a leading BC Mile hope who is training up to the race after winning the Aug. 21 Del Mar Mile.
Ironicus last was seen finishing second to Flintshire in the Grade 1 Manhattan on June 5 over 10 furlongs and might be slightly less effective at one mile. The California-based What A View, a Grade 1 winner over one mile on grass who has won all five of his Santa Anita starts, races for the first time since April in the Shadwell Turf Mile, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race for the BC Mile.
The City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita this weekend almost certainly has less consequence for the BC Mile and is headed by the speedy Obviously, who is as likely to run in the BC Turf Sprint as in the Mile.
There were two overseas races with Mile implications last week, the Sun Chariot in England, which was won by Alice Springs, and the Prix de la Foret in France, won by Limato. Limato is likely to be entered in both the BC Mile and Turf Sprint, with his owner reportedly preferring the Turf Sprint, but Alice Springs, second in the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf last fall and an improved filly in recent months for trainer Aidan O’Brien, apparently is serious a Mile contender.