Breeders' Cup Turf: Motion finds himself with two chances for third win
In a little more than a week, Highland Chief and Bye Bye Melvin won and finished second in marathon stakes on turf earlier this month to convince trainer Graham Motion they belong in the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 5 at Keeneland.
Bye Bye Melvin finished second to the exciting mare War Like Goddess in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at the Belmont at the Big A meeting on Oct. 8 in his 2022 stakes debut.
Highland Chief won the Grade 3 Sycamore Stakes on Oct. 14 at Keeneland, his second graded stakes win in five starts since arriving from Europe last winter.
The results have uplifted the stable, Motion said earlier this week.
“Two months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d have anything,” he said.
Motion has won the BC Turf twice, with Better Talk Now at Lone Star Park in 2004 and with Main Sequence at Santa Anita in 2014. To gain a third victory, Motion’s team must beat War Like Goddess, but also formidable European challengers such as Mishriff and Rebel’s Romance.
Mishriff, a 5-year-old trained by John and Thady Gosden, is winless in six starts this year, including a 13th-place finish in the Group1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris on soft turf. In 2021, Mishriff won three Group 1 races, including the Sheema Classic at 1 1/2 miles on firm turf in Dubai.
Rebel’s Romance, a 4-year-old gelding trained by Charlie Appleby, has won his last four starts, including two Group 1 races at 1 1/2 miles in Germany since mid-August.
Pre-entries for the Breeders’ Cup races will be taken Monday and announced Oct. 26. The list of leading European hopefuls is expected to be deep.
Highland Chief began his career in England, where the highlights included a win in a handicap at 1 1/4 miles for 3-year-olds at Royal Ascot in 2020. After making one start in 2021 in that country, Highland Chief was transferred to Motion.
Owned by Fitriani Hay, Highland Chief won the Grade 1 Man o’ War Stakes at 1 3/8 miles on turf in his American stakes debut in May before finishing fourth in both the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes in June and Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes in July.
The win in the Sycamore gives Highland Chief an outsider’s chance in the BC Turf from Motion’s perspective.
“If you go back to his European form and his Grade 1 win in the spring, I think it puts him in the picture,” Motion said. “He’s right there. I haven’t been overly hard on him over the summer.
“We thought he’d benefit from cooler weather. I think there is a lot of upside as long as he continues to do well.”
Bye Bye Melvin will be near the front in the BC Turf and could produce a surprise in his second start at 1 1/2 miles.
“I think he has a reason to improve,” Motion said.
Nautilus in from Brazil
The foreign challengers will include Nautilus, who earned a fees-paid berth by winning the Group 1 Grande Premio Brasil at 1 1/2 miles in Brazil on June 26, his latest start.
Later transferred to trainer Paulo Lobo in Kentucky, Nautilus has been working on a regular basis in recent weeks for what will be a tough assignment in the BC Turf. On Tuesday, Nautilus breezed five furlongs in 1:02.80 at the Thoroughbred training center in Lexington, Ky.
“He worked in company and he did everything that was planned,” Lobo said. “He came back not blowing. He looks to be very happy.”
Lobo said he is not concerned as much with Nautilus’s fitness after a break between races as he is in allowing the 4-year-old Brazilian-bred a chance to adapt to training in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The race is going to be very tough,” he said. “When I get horses from South America, I like to give them more time. He’s going to run here [after] less than three months that he’s here. He has a lot of challenges to overcome.”
Nautilus won for the first time at 1 1/2 miles in his second start at the distance when he took the $130,300 Grande Premio Brasil by a neck.
“He likes the distance and we’ll see what happens,” Lobo said. “He’s a light horse. He’s not a horse that needs a lot of workouts or a lot of races.”
Lobo said Javier Castellano is booked to ride Nautilus.
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