Nashwa using Prix de l'Opera as overture to Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf

Nashwa isn’t the most talented 3-year-old filly residing in the Newmarket yard of co-trainers John and Thady Gosden. Emily Upjohn, who should have won the Oaks at Epsom on June 3, has more talent. But availability is part of ability, and with Emily Upjohn out of action following one poor post-Oaks run, it is Nashwa who has carried the Gosdens banner through summer and into fall.

Third, beaten more than three lengths by Emily Upjohn and the victorious Tuesday at Epsom, Nashwa came back to win the Prix de Diane, the French Oaks, and beat older fillies and mares July 28 at Goodwood in the Group 1 Nassau Stakes on July 28. Fresh now and ready for an intended trip to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Keeneland, Nashwa starts as the favorite Sunday in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera, a 1 1/4-mile contest likely to be run over softer going than Nashwa has yet encountered.

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The Prix de l’Opera is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race, offering fees-paid entry into the Filly and Mare Turf and travel expenses to Kentucky. The Filly and Mare Turf this year is run over 1 3/16 miles, which suits Nashwa, as should the Opera, which drew 16 runners.

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John Gosden said Nashwa didn’t quite stay the 1 1/2 miles of the Oaks, and the filly, by Frankel, has gone 4 for 4 in races from one mile to 1 5/16 miles. All of her races save the Prix de Diane came over courses rated good or good to firm, and in the Diane, she was home by just a neck over La Parisienne, who also runs Sunday.

La Parisienne looks dangerous, having raced primarily on French courses with plenty of give in the ground. She returned from a layoff of nearly three months to finish third in the 1 1/2-mile Prix Vermeille on Sept. 11 and cuts back to a more suitable trip Sunday.

Fourth in the Vermeille was Tuesday, the Epsom Oaks winner, who didn’t have a great trip in the Vermeille and might not have loved soft turf. And if soft turf in September didn’t suit her, very soft ground on October is not going to work for the Aidan O’Brien-trained Tuesday, which might be one reason jockey Ryan Moore rides Above the Curve, not Tuesday.

Trained by Joseph O’Brien, Above the Curve won the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary over the Longchamp course in May, but didn’t start again until Sept. 11, when she captured the Group 2 Blandford at The Curragh. One-and-one-quarter miles is her game, but Above the Curve steps into her toughest spot Sunday.

Prix de la Foret

The seven-furlong Prix de la Foret isn’t part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, but the race often produces runners for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, as was the case in 2021, when Space Blues won the Foret and was much the best in the BC Mile at Del Mar.

Space Blues, now retired to stud, was a better horse than anything in Sunday’s renewal of the Foret, which as of Friday had the England-based Kinross atop the British bookmaking betting market.

With Frankie Dettori riding for Ralph Beckett, Kinross is a 5-year-old gelding who is riding a two-race winning streak into the Foret, but could only finish a well-beaten fourth over heavy ground in the race’s 2021 renewal.

Tenebrism and Fang hold more appeal, likely at longer prices. Three-year-old filly Tenebrism gets six pounds from older males like Kinross, and she is 1 for 1 in French seven-furlong starts, having landed the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat this past summer. Tenebrism exits a solid third-place finish in the one-mile Matron at Leopardstown, a race Pearls Galore dominated on the front end, and both the cutback in trip and a laboring course could work in her favor.

Fang lacks the credentials and baseline quality of Kinross, but he’s based in France and appears to relishe very soft going.

Prix de l’Abbaye

The Platinum Queen, a 2-year-old filly, makes her second start this year against older rivals and will be among the favorites in the five-furlong, straight-course Prix de l’Abbaye.

The Group 1 sprint is part of the BC Challenge Series, but as a juvenile, The Platinum Queen wouldn’t even be eligible to the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint.

Some European sprint races are open to 2-year-olds, who get a huge weight break from their older rivals. The Platinum Queen on Aug. 19 finished second of 13 in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes, where she got 24 pounds from the victorious filly Highfield Princess, and on Sunday the weight spread is 25 pounds between The Platinum Queen and her older male opponents.

Jockey Hollie Doyle apparently can make the 116 pounds assigned The Platinum Queen, a five-furlong specialist beaten a nose Sept. 11 in the Flying Childers Stakes, a Group 2 restricted to 2-year-olds.

There just is not much established Group 1 sprint form in the Abbaye. A Case of You won this race a year ago and was a top-level performer through this spring, when he won the Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai, but his two most recent starts have yielded dismal results.

Marcel-Boussac

Kelina has looked like a future star beginning her career with two easy wins in France, but who knows how she’ll look under the testing conditions expected Sunday at Longchamp for the Group 1 Prix Marcel-Boussac.

The one-mile race for 2-year-old fillies is part of the BC Challenge Series, offering the winner a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf – which, hopefully, will be run over a firmer course than Longchamp’s this weekend. Kelina, a Wertheimer et Frere homebred by Frankel, already has gone one mile over soft ground at Chantilly, and she’s the likely Boussac favorite over the French filly Wed and the Aidan O’Brien-trained Never Ending Story.

Jean-Luc Lagardere

The Antarctic and Shartash, the early favorites in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere for 2-year-olds at seven furlongs, both ship from Ireland. The Antarctic just raced Sept. 24, running from the rear of the field to finish second, beaten two lengths by his O’Brien-trained stablemate Blackbeard, in the Group 1 Middle Park over six furlongs.

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