Breeders' Cup: Once again, Appleby could have Juvenile Turf tied up
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The first Breeders’ Cup win for Charlie Appleby, about four months after he became a head trainer for Godolphin, came in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
The first Breeders’ Cup race Appleby and Godolphin could win in 2022 is the Juvenile Turf Sprint. There, Mischief Magic has a chance – but only a chance. The second race Appleby could win is the Juvenile Turf, and here, Silver Knott looks formidable.
“He’s probably the horse they’ve all got to beat, realistically,” Appleby said.
Appleby is the trainer they’ve all got to beat. He won all three Breeders’ Cup races he entered in 2021 and is 11-6-1-0 with Breeders’ Cup starters, five more trophies following Outstrip’s half-length victory over an Aidan O’Brien-trained colt named Giovanni Boldini nine years ago.
The one mile, $1 million Juvenile Turf drew a full field of 14. A dozen entrants are North Americans, while the only other overseas participant is Victoria Road, an O’Brien-trained colt. Victoria Road probably has the best chance at upsetting Silver Knott, and this could easily be a repeat of the Appleby-O’Brien exacta of 2013.
Appleby’s three Juvenile Turf wins are second only to O’Brien’s four, but while O’Brien won the 2015 renewal here at Keeneland with Hit It a Bomb, Appleby has captured two of the last four, with Modern Games last year and Line of Duty in 2018.
Appleby’s North American record over the last two calendar years seems impossible: 25-13-5-2 in graded stakes. Clearly, he has figured out what sort of horses fit North American racing, and even after Mysterious Night easily won the Summer Stakes on Sept. 17 at Woodbine, it was always Silver Knott that Appleby targeted for the Juvenile Turf.
Perhaps with that in mind, Appleby twice this summer raced Silver Knott around a turn, sending him to an easy win on the all-weather track at Kempton Park, and then another one on turf in the Solario Stakes at Sandown Park. Silver Knott, by Lope de Vega, comes into this after a hard-fought win in the one-mile, straight-course Autumn Stakes at Newmarket. That was a Group 3, but runner-up Epictetus and third-place Holloway Boy returned to earn the same placings in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity. And the two races Silver Knott lost, one over soft going, were won by Chaldean, hero of the Group 1 Dewhurst.
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“His form has worked out quite well,” Appleby said. “He’s competed at a nice level and a sounder surface will suit him.”
Silver Knott and jockey William Buick drew well in post 3, and Victoria Road under Ryan Moore will be fine in post 1. Victoria Road’s ratings lag behind Silver Knott’s, but he’s a progressive colt on a three-race winning streak, including one at Deauville Racecourse over the filly Blue Rose Cen, who subsequently won the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac and would’ve been a key contender had a minor injury not forced her from the Juvenile Fillies Turf.
“He did surprise us. We thought he was a five- or six-furlong horse. He’s from a fast, precocious pedigree, but it was only when we started stepping him up [in distance] that we saw a much better horse,” O’Brien said.
Victoria Road twice has gone to France – O’Brien mentioned him as a 2023 French Derby candidate – producing an impressive finishing run to land the 1 1/8-mile Prix de Conde on Sept. 17, his most recent start.
“He came from a long way back at Chantilly, which is a very difficult thing to do,” O’Brien said. “He has pace. He’s obviously not stuck to the ground.”
The Juvenile Turf includes the winners of the key American preps: Andthewinneris impressively won the Bourbon over the Keeneland course; Major Dude and I’m Very Busy ran one-two in the Pilgrim at Aqueduct; Packs a Wahlop won the Zuma Beach at Santa Anita; Webslinger the Nownownow at Monmouth; and Reckoning Force the Juvenile at Kentucky Downs.
Andthewinneris, an attractive, good-moving colt by first-crop sire Oscar Performance, benefited from an exceedingly vigorous tempo closing from the back of the field to win the Bourbon by 2 3/4 lengths, making him 2 for 2 on Keeneland’s quirky course. Trainer Wayne Catalano believes Andthewinneris can effectively stick closer to a softer pace.
“I really like that horse a lot. He’s got a good mind on him, and this is like his home turf,” Catalano said.
The pace Friday likely won’t turn breakneck, but two longshots, Curly Larry and Mo and wide-drawn Gaslight Dancer, should ensure honest fractions. Packs a Wahlop breaks from post 2 under Mike Smith and with his positional pace could fall into a perfect trip behind the two leaders. Packs a Wahlop moved well over the Keeneland dirt track training Tuesday morning, is 3 for 3 on grass, and his trainer, Jeff Mullins, isn’t concerned moving from California to Kentucky grass racing.
“I don’t think any kind of surface is going to bother him. I think he could run just as well on dirt,” Mullins said.
You might imagine Nagirroc a pace player trying two turns for the first time after a pace-stalking score in the six-furlong Futurity at Aqueduct, but trainer Graham Motion demurs.
“I wouldn’t want him on the lead, and I don’t think he’s speed-crazy,” Motion said.
Motion thinks Nagirroc has the stamina and mind to stay a mile, but moving from sprints to the BC Juvenile Turf presents a challenge.
“It’s a lot to ask a horse that’s only sprinted three times to run in the biggest race of his life,” he said.
Owing to an eye-catching debut win in a Saratoga turf-route maiden and the fact Chad Brown trains him, I’m Very Busy was the 7-10 Pilgrim favorite. He loomed boldly in upper stretch but failed to pass first-time turfer Major Dude, who had raced close to a slow pace over a soft course and turned back I’m Very Busy to win by one length. Major Dude drew poorly in post 13 but held his own last weekend breezing in company with Grade 1-winning 3-year-old Annapolis.
“Could be he’s not getting enough credit for winning,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “We wouldn’t be concerned if the ground came up soft, but based on the breezes over firm ground, I’m okay with that, too.”
Battle of Normandy, Mo Stash, and Really Good, longshots all, round out the field. Regardless of odds, 13 of these might well be running for second behind Silver Knott.
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