Breeders' Cup Turf: War Like Goddess leads the home team
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Bill Mott’s back ached Monday morning. Fair enough. Mott, who turns 70 next summer, galloped his own horses until he was in his mid-40s. Nevertheless, Mott picked up a rake to help assistant trainer Neil Poznansky smooth out heaped shaving covering the shed row. It was getting on toward noon. Someone asked Mott what he did for entertainment after work. “This,” he said.
After some leaner years, by his lofty standards, Mott has come back with a vengeance in 2022. Already he has 23 graded stakes wins, his highest total since 2007, and Mott has entrants – live ones – in seven Breeders’ Cup races Saturday. Mott hasn’t won a Breeders’ Cup race since 2016, and it’s been even longer since the second of his two Breeders’ Cup Turf wins, Fraise in 1992 following Theatrical in 1987. But War Like Goddess, a mare taking on males, is the leading American hope Saturday in the $4 million Turf.
War Like Goddess is 2 for 2 at Keeneland and 5 for 5 over the Turf’s 1 1/2-mile trip. And she has unfinished Breeders’ Cup business. Last year at Del Mar, War Like Goddess should’ve won the Filly and Mare Turf. Her rider, loaded at the half-mile pole, moved very wide and very early, perhaps too concerned with Del Mar’s short homestretch. In the end, with War Like Goddess’s big run sputtering, she was tagged on the wire by Loves Only You and My Sister Nat.
“Really let down,” Mott said, asked to describe his post-race effect.
This feels like a somewhat down year for the BC Turf. There are very good horses entered, for sure, but nothing like true standouts of the past. The field goes 13 deep, the outside horses compromised by a short run into the first of three turns.
War Like Goddess takes on males because, at 1 3/16 miles, this year’s Filly and Mare Turf is too short for her. But for pilot error, she would carry a nine-race winning streak into this start, her only other loss during that span a ridiculously compromised second on Sept. 3 in the Flower Bowl at Saratoga. Too far behind a slow pace in the Flower Bowl, War Like Goddess stuck much closer to the lead beating males last month in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic. Jose Lezcano rode her that day; Saturday, Joel Rosario is tasked with working out a trip.
Bye Bye Melvin set the pace in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic and breaks from post 1 on Saturday. “It’s hard to imagine he won’t be on the lead,” trainer Graham Motion said.
Also racing close to the front will be the old warrior Channel Maker, Mott’s second entrant, whose 49th career start marks his fifth appearance in the Turf. He was fifth last year, a better third over this course in 2020.
Stone Age, who has failed to follow through on promise showed at age 2 and early during this, his 3-year-old season, might show speed. His Aidan O’Brien-trained stablemate Broome will not. Broome ran one of the best races of his career finishing second at Del Mar in the BC Turf, but he was less effective this summer in the Sword Dancer at Saratoga, unable to overcome his position too far behind a slow pace after a bad start. The first steps in a race – those have been Broome’s undoing.
:: Bet the Breeders' Cup with a $200 First Deposit Match and FREE Formulator PPs. Join DRF Bets.
“He has one flaw – he misses the break,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes he anticipates the gates, and he loses three lengths and he’s straightaway out the back of it. It’s cost him so many times I can’t tell you.”
Broome can’t be ruled out. Interestingly, O’Brien’s top jockey, Ryan Moore, rides Stone Age, with Irad Ortiz Jr. back on Broome for the first time since the 2021 BC Turf.
Mishriff, the richest horse at the Breeders’ Cup with nearly $16 million in earnings, enters on a seven-race losing streak. He does have three performances this season that put him in the mix, and his win in the 2021 Sheema Classic, a 1 1/2-mile grass race on an American-style course in Dubai, gives him a sliver of hope. Mishriff adds blinkers for his career finale.
The Brazilian horse Nautilus has been stabled with trainer Paulo Lobo for a couple months and would be a shocking winner. Highland Chief won over the course in October, parlaying a perfect trip into victory in the 1 1/2-mile Sycamore Stakes. Highland Chief disliked hot weather this summer, said Motion, his trainer, and has thrived with cooler autumn temperatures. Post 13 did little to enhance his chances. Red Knight, in post 10 on Saturday, was compromised by trouble finishing eighth in the Sycamore, but his very best will not be good enough. Gold Phoenix and Master Piece have shone facing considerably softer competition in California. They’re deserving longshots.
Not longshots: Two horses trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin, the team that won the 2021 Turf with Yibir. Yibir was a 3-year-old with a win in America, and 3-year-old Nations Pride might be following in his hoofprints.
Since Nations Pride finished eighth in the Derby at Epsom in June, all three of his races have come in New York, resulting in two wins and a second in rich 3-year-old turf stakes.
“He’s what I would call a mile-and-a-quarter horse who will get the mile and a half over here,” Appleby said. “He’s got that turn of foot.”
William Buick, the top jockey for Godolphin, rides Nations Pride, whose romping win Sept. 17 in the Jockey Club Derby Invitational came over a horse still eligible for a first-level allowance race. Nonetheless, Appleby feels Nations Pride can improve and will suit the Keeneland course better than his second entrant, 4-year-old Rebel’s Romance. Rebel’s Romance, a dirt horse to start his career, has gone 4 for 4 since being moved to turf this season, the last two wins in 1 1/2-mile German Group 1 races. He’s a bulky beast of a colt who races in a hood and comes from well off the pace. James Doyle has the mount.
“I wouldn’t say he’s got the acceleration Nations Pride has,” Appleby said. “Just the size of him, he’s got to come round these turns, and it’d be more of an effort, I’d say, whereas the other fellow will slick round them.”
Rebel’s Romance will dwarf War Like Goddess. The 5-year-old English Channel mare fetched $1,100 as a weanling, $1,000 as a yearling, and $30,000 at a 2-year-old sale. She didn’t debut until late in her 3-year-old season but, under Mott’s tutelage, now is 9-1-2 from 12 starts with earnings of $1.6 million.
“She’s a plain little horse, but she’s special. Disposition-wise, she takes no crap. She’s a little fighter,” Mott said, as he went back to raking his shed row, 10 Breeders’ Cup starters lined up, waiting for this weekend.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.