Female champions square off in La Troienne

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After capping off a near-perfect season with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff to sew up an Eclipse Award as champion older dirt female of 2023 what does Idiomatic do for an encore in 2024?

“I don’t know,” trainer Brad Cox said with a smile. “I guess try to stay undefeated and make a run at Horse of the Year. We’ll let her determine if that’s in the cards, but I will say I am very excited about getting her year started.”

Idiomatic will make her much-anticipated return Friday at Churchill Downs in the $1 million La Troienne, a race that will feature not one but two reigning Eclipse Award winners, with last year’s 3-year-old champion filly Pretty Mischievous among the seven fillies and mares entered to go 1 1/16 miles in the Grade 1 fixture.

Idiomatic came a long way during her 4-year-old season, which began in relative anonymity with three straight wins over the synthetic surface at Turfway Park and ended with three consecutive Grade 1 victories, including her game half-length decision over Randomized and Le Da Vida in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The Juddmonte homebred banked $2.4 million on the season, the lone blemish on her record in nine starts a second-place finish in the Grade 2 Ruffian at Belmont Park in just her second try on dirt.

“We started the year hoping to make her a stakes winner, and she accomplished that in March,” Cox recalled. “I always felt she would run on dirt during her 3-year-old season. Unfortunately that got cut short due to a minor injury. She showed in the Ruffian she could compete on dirt, and then her win here a month later in the [Grade 3] Shawnee is the one that really opened my eyes.”

:: DRF Kentucky Derby Package: Save on PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more.

Cox gave Idiomatic the winter off following her Distaff triumph at Santa Anita and said she couldn’t be training better coming into her 2024 debut, with six works on her résumé, including five furlongs in 59.87 seconds punctuated by an eye-catching gallop-out here last week. Cox said the La Troienne is the perfect spot to kick off her season.

“It’s an ideal distance for her, and she likes it here,” Cox noted. “It’s a solid enough field, obviously, with the 3-year-old champion in there too. The race has some speed from the outside, but she proved in the Breeders’ Cup that she is able to sit off, if she has to.”

Like Idiomatic, the versatile Pretty Mischievous also registered three straight Grade 1 wins in 2023, starting with a hard-fought neck decision over Gambling Girl here in the Kentucky Oaks. After winning the Acorn and Test, Pretty Mischievous finished second in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx Racing as a stepping-stone to an expected start in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. She was withdrawn by trainer Brendan Walsh the day before that race.

“When she got out there to the Breeders’ Cup she was a little colicky and I just wasn’t happy how she was doing,” Walsh recalled. “The difference between her now and where she was back out there then, she’s back where I want her now. When we came up here last year she just blossomed the week coming into the Oaks. And she’s kind of like that again. She’s doing super. I think she’s about as fit as we can get her without running her.”

As for having to take on a champion like Idiomatic, as well as older horses for the first time in her first start at 4, Walsh admitted it won’t be an easy task but said he was looking forward to the challenge.

“No matter where we go with her now, we’re going to have to take on these top, top runners,” Walsh said. “Last year when we were at the Breeders’ Cup, she would have looked like a baby next to them. Now she doesn’t after filling out. She’s gotten a lot stronger. There’s just such a difference when they go from 3 to 4. And [Idiomatic] is in the same boat as we are on Friday. She’s coming into the race off a long layoff too.”

:: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!

Among those faced with the formidable task of trying to upset the two reigning champions are Xigera, Dorth Vader, Frosty O’Toole, Taxed, and Free Like a Girl. Like Idiomatic and Pretty Mischievous, both Xigera and Dorth Vader are returning from extended vacations in their 2024 debuts.

Xigera comes into the race on a roll of her own, having also closed her 2023 season with three consecutive wins, all one-sided, including the Grade 3 Falls City by 6 1/2 lengths here Nov. 23. Trained by Phil Bauer, the versatile Xigera also won the Grade 2 Mother Goose at Belmont at Aqueduct and Tepin Stakes on the Ellis Park turf at 3.

Dorth Vader chased Pretty Mischievous home in each of her last three outings a year ago, finishing fifth behind that nemesis after a wide trip in the Kentucky Oaks; second, beaten just a head, in the Acorn; and fourth in her 3-year-old finale, the Grade 1 Test on Aug. 5 at Saratoga.

:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.