Found heads back to Ireland following BC Turf win

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Found, the Breeders’ Cup Turf-winning 3-year-old filly, left for a return trip to Ireland at 6 a.m. Sunday but will get a chance to build on her late-season success during a 2016 campaign that conceivably could end with a repeat bid in the Turf.

Found and all the other Coolmore horses left the Keeneland quarantine area early Sunday after a strong weekend here. Hit It a Bomb won the Juvenile Turf on Friday, and with better luck, Alice Springs would have won the Juvenile Fillies Turf. Legatissimo, trained by David Wachman rather than Aidan O’Brien, finished second in the Filly and Mare Turf and might well have won had she not gone to her nose stumbling just after the start, and Found, after a series of second-place finishes in major races, finally broke through.

Her win came at the expense of the odds-on favorite Golden Horn, who took the lead in upper stretch of the Turf but could not quite finish with Found when the filly, under Ryan Moore, ranged up alongside at the eighth pole. Golden Horn’s camp insisted before the race and said Sunday morning that the winner of the English Derby and more recently the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe had come to Keeneland in great physical condition and that a long year and a powerful win in the Arc had taken nothing away from the 3-year-old colt.

Moments after dismounting Saturday, Jockey Frankie Dettori said Golden Horn just could not accelerate on Keeneland’s sand-based turf course, which was dull throughout racing Friday and Saturday. Since rain began falling steadily here early Tuesday morning, there was concern that Golden Horn, a fast-ground kind of horse, might not be able to show his best. The turf had dried considerably by Saturday afternoon and was rated good, but trainer John Gosden said it was too loose for his horse.

Golden Horn now goes to stud after a memorable 3-year-old season in which he added the Eclipse Stakes and the Irish Champion to his best wins in the Derby and the Arc. He ships back to England on Monday and will have two or three weeks at Gosden’s yard at Newmarket before being moved to nearby Dalham Hall Stud.

Plans are uncertain for the Turf’s third- and fourth-place finishers, Big Blue Kitten and Slumber, both trained by Chad Brown. Big Blue Kitten was sold this fall by Ken and Sarah Ramsey and now belongs solely to Calumet Farm, and Brown said he was to meet with Calumet sometime Sunday to discuss whether Big Blue Kitten would race on in 2016 or be retired to stallion duty. Brown said Slumber would ship with his string to South Florida, but it had not yet been decided whether Slumber will race again in 2016.