Lennilu, Be Your Best work for Breeders' Cup at Palm Meadows
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A couple of South Florida-based fillies prepping for starts in the Breeders’ Cup, Lennilu and Be Your Best, had their connections smiling after turning in sharp workouts at the Palm Meadows Training Center on Thursday.
Lennilu served notice she could be a force to reckon with in the Juvenile Turf Sprint after zipping five furlongs in 57.00 seconds over a firm turf course at Palm Meadows while in company with stablemate I Know I Know. Lennilu has captured 4 of 5 career starts, her lone setback a third-place finish behind True Love in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes earlier this season at Royal Ascot. True Love is currently listed as the 7-2 favorite on Daily Racing Form’s morning line for the Juvenile Turf Sprint.
“For me, they can never go fast enough – in the morning or afternoon,” quipped trainer Patrick Biancone. “She worked with an older horse we use to train with her all the time and went easily. She’s doing fantastic.
“This was her main work. She’ll have one more blowout before boarding the plane for Del Mar next Thursday.”
Be Your Best, who could prove the one to catch in the $2 Million Filly and Mare Turf, showed off her speed breezing an easy half-mile in 49.08 from the three-eighths pole before galloping out five furlongs in 1:01.89 over the main track Thursday. Be Your Best has not started since finishing third in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl on Aug. 30 at Saratoga. The 5-year-old Irish bred mare became a Grade 1 winner in the Gamely at Santa Anita earlier this season.
“She’s a very good work horse and in very good form now,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “She might be an outsider in the race but a very live outsider in my opinion. The firm course out there should favor her running style. The only negative is that a mile and three-eighths might stretch her a bit. It depends on the fractions she gets.”
Be Your Best is one of five potential Breeders’ Cup starters for Joseph, who also has White Abarrio for the Dirt Mile; R Disaster and Haulin Ice as possibilities for the Filly and Mare Sprint; and Rileytole, beaten a nose by Iron Orchard in the Grade 1 Frizette, pointing to the Juvenile Fillies.
Haulin Ice, who earned an automatic fees-paid berth in the Filly and Mare Sprint by virtue of her victory in the Grade 3 Princess Rooney at Gulfstream Park, did not sell in Fasig Tipton’s flash digital sale that ended Thursday. She has not worked since her 4 3/4-length victory in the Princess Rooney on Sept. 20.
“We couldn’t work her during the sale, but she’ll breeze Saturday at Palm Meadows,” Joseph said. “R Disaster worked three-eighths this morning at Saratoga and right now we’re undecided as to whether she’ll run in the Breeders’ Cup or wait for the stakes at Churchill Downs the following week.”
White Abarrio has been on a regular Thursday work schedule for much of the past month, although has not breezed this week.
“They closed the track for renovations on Tuesday and gave us little notice they were doing so,” Joseph said. “Fortunately, we were ahead of schedule with him, so he’ll just have one more work instead of two before he leaves for Del Mar. In a perfect world that will be next Tuesday, assuming they don’t decide to close the track again.”
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