Village Voice works half-mile for Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf
?q=100)
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Village Voice, who came off a near-yearlong layoff to win the Grade 3 Waya Stakes at Aqueduct on Oct. 5, worked a half-mile in 50.14 seconds over the Oklahoma turf course Sunday in preparation for a start in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 1.
Village Voice worked on the inside of Alimara (ninth in the Waya), the two going a quarter in 25.92 seconds and galloping out five furlongs in 1:02.46.
“Just a little maintenance half on the turf, I thought she was moving really well,” said trainer Chad Brown, who plans to work Village Voice one more time in Saratoga before shipping to California.
Village Voice got up to win the 1 3/8-mile Waya by a neck in her first start in 50 weeks and first in the U.S. It was also her first race for Brown and owner John Stewart.
“I was quite impressed off nearly a year layoff she was able to have that kick and beat a field of horses that were fit and in form,” Brown said. “I was very pleased to see it, I wasn’t surprised because the filly had been training really well, it’s just that I needed to see her do it off a layoff, which was a big ask and she came through. She could be a top-class filly.”
Brown said Village Voice’s chances in the Filly and Mare Turf could depend on the quality of females coming over from Europe for the race.
“The American horses, generally those aren’t our best horses going that far in that division,” said Brown, who has won the Filly and Mare Turf four times. “If she’s a Grade 3, Grade 2 filly right now - I think she could be a Grade 1 horse - that’s what the American fillies are, so it’s just a matter of what’s coming over. She clearly fits with the American horses, she just beat a bunch of them off a layoff - not all of them - but that’s the way to look at it.”
Brown likened Village Voice to My Sister Nat, the Brown trainee who in 2021 won the Waya Stakes before finishing second in the Filly and Mare Turf at 29-1 to the Japanese filly Loves Only You.
“Prior to that you wouldn’t have said she’s a Grade 1 filly,” Brown said. “That’s sort of the way I’m thinking because of the distance of the race. [Village Voice] is a specialist going a mile-and-three-eighths, mile-and-a-half, so I think she fits. I don’t think it’s a reach to send her out there.”
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.