Iroquois, Pocahontas offer preview of juvenile Breeders' Cup candidates

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It has become a rite of late summer, ever since Churchill Downs took over a block of dates from a faltering Turfway Park in 2013. The Pocahontas and Iroquois were switched at that time from their traditional fall slots to the new September meet, a sage move that clearly has heightened the importance of both stakes in the grand scheme of 2-year-old racing.

The Iroquois, for 2-year-olds, and the Pocahontas, for 2-year-old fillies, not only are Win and You’re In races toward their respective Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 5 at Del Mar, but they’re also the first qualifying events for the 2022 Kentucky Derby and Oaks, with 10 points to each winner.

Moreover, both Grade 3 races will be offering the biggest purses in their histories when they’re run back-to-back under the Churchill lights Saturday night. Both are worth as much as $300,000, thanks in no small part to revenues from the slots-like historical horse racing machines at nearby Trackside helping to fatten all purses here.

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Purses for both races include $75,000 in bonuses restricted to registered Kentucky-breds. Pocahontas starters Lemieux and Joyrunner were bred elsewhere, while every Iroquois runner is a Kentucky-bred.

Both will be run at 1 1/16 miles, with the Pocahontas going as race 8 at 9:39 p.m. Eastern and the Iroquois following as race 9 (10:11). Both drew fields of 11 with no clear-cut favorite.

Pocahontas

Hidden Connection owns the biggest Beyer Speed Figure in the Pocahontas field, but at this early stage of the game, with little established form, that’s only one of many useful tools in handicapping a race of such a wide-open nature. The daughter of the young sire Connect earned an 84 Beyer in winning on debut last month going 5 1/2 furlongs at Colonial Downs for trainer Bret Calhoun.

“She was extremely impressive,” Calhoun said. “I’m not sure what she beat, but she did it the right way. She ran a great Ragozin number (9 1/2), and maybe the best part is she’s a filly who acts like she wants more ground.”

Reylu Gutierrez has a return call on Hidden Connection, who was assigned post 9. Gutierrez, already well traveled at age 24, is committed to riding the Kentucky circuit until moving to Fair Grounds in late November.

Capable opposition is plentiful. Goddess of Fire (post 2, Javier Castellano), trained by the newly minted Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, won at first asking last month at Saratoga. Ontheonesandtwos (post 4, Ricardo Santana Jr.) got an 81 Beyer in finishing second as the favorite here in the June 26 Debutante before running sixth as the favorite in the Grade 2 Adirondack at Saratoga, her only subsequent race.

Maxine Machine (post 6, Florent Geroux) won her only start when going a mile on the Ellis Park turf for the ever-dangerous Brad Cox barn. Lemieux (post 10, Tyler Gaffalione) is a four-length last-out Saratoga maiden winner. Joyrunner (post 11, Joseph Ramos) is unbeaten in two starts, both at Indiana Grand. Mama Rina, Majestic d’Oro, and Kneesnhips all merit respect at potentially long odds.

This is the 53rd running of the Pocahontas, which claims such standouts as Epitome (1987), Unbridled Elaine (2000), Untapable (2013), and Serengeti Empress (2018) among prior winners.

Iroquois

Pletcher also sends one in from New York for the Iroquois in Major General (post 8, Castellano), whose lone start resulted in a victory at Saratoga that graded out to a 77 Beyer, among the highest in this field. The $420,000 yearling purchase can be expected to be among the lukewarm favorites, along with Stellar Tap (post 6, Santana), whose winning debut Aug. 7 at Saratoga earned him an immediate spot in racing lore as the record-breaking 9,446th career winner for trainer Steve Asmussen.

Stellar Tap earned a 78 Beyer in that 5 1/4-length jaunt going seven furlongs, and given the gray colt is by the prolific sire Tapit, he’s among the prime candidates here to get the two-turn distance.

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Other notables in the 40th Iroquois include Roger McQueen (post 3, Adam Beschizza), a last-out winner of the Ellis Juvenile for Larry Rivelli, the Chicago kingpin who won the Iroquois in 2015 and 2017; a second Asmussen trainee in Guntown (post 9, Gaffalione), a last-out maiden romper at Ellis for the red-hot sire Gun Runner; Husband Material (post 10, Geroux), a 20-length winner of an off-the-turf maiden route at Delaware Park; and Strike Hard (post 4, Leonel Reyes), a Gulfstream Park shipper armed with a co-field-high 78 Beyer from a last-out maiden score.

Fringe players in a very competitive group include the Ellis Juvenile runner-up Lucky Boss and Bourbon Heist, who might be a maiden but did earn a 77 Beyer in a just-miss defeat in his last at Saratoga.

The Iroquois, which dates to 1982, honors nearby Iroquois Park, a conservancy long regarded as one of Louisville’s great outdoor treasures.