Got Stormy, Uni leading ladies among Breeder's Cup Mile pre-entries

Let’s hear it for the ladies in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Got Stormy, a 4-year-old filly, and Uni, a 5-year-old mare, are the two most exciting prospects for the $2 million Mile, which drew an overflow group of pre-entries this week.

Fourteen can start in the race (a recipe for a rodeo on a fairly tight course like Santa Anita’s) and 20 horses were pre-entered. Suedois, who was not selected as part of the top 14, is likely to get into field. Bricks and Mortar has a spot in the body of the field and might even be the Mile favorite, but his connections gave first preference to the Turf and have indicated that’s the race in which Bricks and Mortar will start.

That would leave the France-based horse Trais Fluors as the next horse eligible to get into the race, and his connections might decide not to ship under those circumstances. After Trais Fluors comes Lucullan, whose connections have a right to be miffed at rating so low in the selections process. Lucullan was disqualified from a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile but then won the Grade 2 Knickerbocker. Just Wonderful, who was selected into the field, has zero wins from seven starts this year and her closest loss was a third-place finish in the Group 1 Matron, which is sex-restricted. Hey Gaman, another selected runner, also brings shaky credentials.

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Hey Gaman and Just Wonderful are two of six European horses selected into the field’s main body, a group headed by 3-year-old Circus Maximus, a two-time Group 1 winner in one-mile races this year. Circus Maximus is trained by Aidan O’Brien, who also starts Just Wonderful. O’Brien has come close in the Mile but is winless with 18 starters. Other Europeans are the 3-year-old filly Iridessa, who has the Filly and Mare Turf as second preference; Lord Glitters, winner of the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race; and Line of Duty, whose last victory came in the 2018 BC Juvenile Turf. Space Traveller’s top win came at the Group 2 level.

Tepin in 2015 was the last of six females to have won the Mile. Miesque, the second of them, won the Mile twice while Goldikova won it three straight years. Mark Casse trained Tepin and is the trainer of Got Stormy, who was brilliant beating males in the Grade 1 Foustardave at Saratoga. She regressed slightly but still turned in a creditable performance when second last out to El Tormenta, another Mile starter, in the Woodbine Mile.

Uni was supplemented into the race for $100,000 after a course-record-setting performance last month in the one-mile First Lady, a Grade 1 race at Keeneland restricted to fillies and mares. Uni, trained like Bricks and Mortars by Chad Brown, finished third in Got Stormy’s Fourstardave but improved considerably in the First Lady.

Bowies Hero comes off a victory in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile, also at Keeneland, a BC Challenge race for the Mile. Bolo won the Shoemaker Mile this past spring, another BC Challenge race, but since has finished eighth and 10th. True Valour, winner of the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita last out, is the other horse selected into the field. Without Parole, Caribou Club, and Next Shares sit below Lucullan on the list of horses excluded from the field.