Prix de l'Opera win makes Villa Marina one of the ones in Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf

By virtue of her victory in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera last Sunday at Longchamp, Villa Marina established herself as one of the main threats to Sistercharlie in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

The win was the second straight in a group stakes – and third overall – at 1 1/4 miles for Villa Marina. The Filly and Mare Turf will be run at 1 1/4 miles. Villa Marina’s lone loss in her last four starts came in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, when she finished fourth to winner Star Catcher at 1 1/2 miles.

“The mile and a half was too long for her, otherwise she would have won that race,” trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias said Wednesday by phone from France. “At a mile and a quarter, she beat basically the same kind of field.”

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In July at Deauville, Villa Marina won the Group 3 Prix de Psyche, beating Edisa, who came back to win the $750,000 Jockey Club Oaks Invitational at Belmont Park in her next start.

Though her last two victories have come on soft ground, Villa Marina can handle firm turf just fine, Laffon-Parias said.

“I don’t care about the ground,” he said.

Villa Marina will represent the third Breeders’ Cup Starter for Laffon-Parias. In 2000, Goldamix finished 10th in Filly and Mare Turf. In 2015, Impassable was sixth in the Mile.

Laffon-Parias will have four-time Breeders’ Cup winner Olivier Peslier to ride Villa Marina. Peslier won the 2001 Filly and Mare Turf on Banks Hill, but is best remembered for guiding the mare Goldikova to three consecutive victories in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Since finishing fourth on Goldikova in the 2011 Mile, Peslier has had only three Breeders’ Cup mounts, most recently in 2015.

The rest of the European-based Filly and Mare Turf contingent is in flux. Veracious and Iridessa, second and third in the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket, are expected to run. It is not clear whom Aidan O’Brien would run, though Fleeting, beaten a neck by Villa Marina, would seem a likely candidate. The Japanese-bred Deirdre is possible. John Gosden has the pair of Star Catcher and Anapurna who could run in the Breeders’ Cup or on Champions Day at Ascot.

Besides Sistercharlie, the U.S.-based competition seems light, with only Mrs. Sippy and Thais, second and third to Sistercharlie in the Flower Bowl, and Mirth considered definite. Vasilika, third in the First Lady at Keeneland, is pointing to the race pending a Breeders’ Cup decision on whether Jerry Hollendorfer, the trainer and part-owner of the mare, will be permitted to participate in the event.