Ted Noffey, Tommy Jo back to Saratoga to train for Breeders' Cup
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After sweeping Keeneland’s Grade 1 races for dirt 2-year-olds, Ted Noffey and Tommy Jo are headed back to Saratoga, where they launched their careers, to prepare for their biggest test yet, the Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 31 at Del Mar.
Both horses are trained by Todd Pletcher for Spendthrift Farm.
“They will head to Saratoga, where Todd has his Breeders’ Cup horses, on Monday,” Sophie Green, who is overseeing the Pletcher barn at Keeneland, said the morning after Ted Noffey won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity.
Pletcher’s Breeders’ Cup contingent in Saratoga is led by older males Fierceness, Mindframe, Antiquarian, and Locked, who have been training there in recent weeks. The stable added another graded stakes-winning 2-year-old on Sunday, when Final Score captured the Grade 2 Bourbon on the turf at Keeneland. Earlier in the week, Pletcher had said his Breeders’ Cup horses would fly from Saratoga to Del Mar on Oct. 26.
Ted Noffey is the likely favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile off his 2 3/4-length win in the Breeders’ Futurity that earned him a Beyer Speed Figure of 97. He is unbeaten in three starts, all by open lengths, after winning his Saratoga debut and then dominating the Grade 1 Hopeful with a 98 Beyer.
The Hopeful was at seven furlongs. The Futurity, at 1 1/16 miles, was the first two-turn test for the son of Into Mischief.
“He’s a nice-sized, scopey, leggy horse, built to like two turns,” Spendthrift general manager Ned Toffey, for whom the colt is named, said. “The way he ran in the Hopeful would make you think he’d like two turns, but they still have to do it. We were cautiously optimistic, but you just never know until they do it, and he sure did it.”
Meanwhile, Tommy Jo, also by Into Mischief and officially unbeaten in three starts, is on to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. After winning her two Saratoga outings, including the Grade 1 Spinaway, she crossed the line second, 2 3/4 lengths behind Percy’s Bar, in the Grade 1 Alcibiades on Friday at Keeneland. However, she was elevated to first on a disqualification as, while trying to get by pacesetting Percy’s Bar near the three-sixteenths pole, Percy’s Bar came out and made contact with Tommy Jo, knocking her off stride and causing her to drift out.
Pletcher said Tommy Jo was in good order after the race and expected her to get a lot out of the Alcibiades, for which she earned a 75 Beyer after notching identical 85 figures in her first two starts.
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