The Bob Baffert sweep of Saturday’s Grade 1 Los Alamitos CashCall Futurity, with the immensely promising Improbable, and the Grade 1 Starlet, with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah’s half-sister Chasing Yesterday, brought the curtain down on our major late-season 2-year-old stakes. When taken as a whole, these post-Breeders’ Cup Stakes paint an interesting picture. Let’s take a look at the fillies first. Chasing Yesterday, whose only loss in four starts going into Saturday was a seventh as the favorite in the Spinaway at Saratoga after an unfavorable trip she simply couldn’t overcome, saw her already heady value increase exponentially by landing a Grade 1 in the Starlet. She did so game-style in her first attempt around two turns after being about four-wide throughout, although wide trips at Los Alamitos don’t seem to be as compromising as they are at most other tracks. That’s the good news. The less-than-good news is Chasing Yesterday struggled to score by a head over Enaya Alrabb, a 30-1 outsider who was coming off an uninspiring maiden win over five opponents. Moreover, it took Chasing Yesterday 1:42.59 to complete the 1 1/16 miles, which was 1.41 seconds more than Improbable needed to win the Los Al Futurity two races earlier after an early pace that was virtually identical to the Starlet. Now, Improbable looks like a special prospect and some might say comparing Chasing Yesterday to him is unfair. I say the fact that Jaywalk won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in faster time than Game Winner won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile a couple of races later on the same Breeders’ Cup Friday card makes comparisons fair game. The time gap between the Los Al Futurity and the Starlet, which wound up with a preliminary Beyer Figure of only 82, is enormous, and not flattering to Chasing Yesterday. This was the story in one of the two other major post-Breeders’ Cup Stakes for 2-year-old fillies. The Golden Rod at Churchill Downs, won by a nose by 27-1 upsetter Liora over a Restless Rider whom I believe was making one start too many this year, was run slow motion on a sloppy track, ending up with a winning Beyer of just 75. Aqueduct’s Demoiselle, the other important late-season stakes for 2-year-old fillies, was the stage for a faster, more stylish score by Positive Spirit, though that race has its own set of questions. Positive Spirit won the Demoiselle by 10 1/2 lengths and was assigned an 86 Beyer, but that race was run on a day when the Aqueduct main track was extremely slow early and sped up radically late, and on a day when there was a profound bias toward runners in outside paths, at least in the early part of the card, if not the entire day. Positive Spirit’s Demoiselle came at a time that day when the track was extremely slow and the bias (which she rode) was in full effect. So taking this performance at face value is risky. The bottom line here is, as long as the breathtaking Newspaperofrecord remains on turf, Jaywalk, who dominated the Frizette in the same manner she romped in the Juvenile Fillies, would seem to have little to fear from what transpired post-Breeders’ Cup. However, I am not at all sure that Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and certain divisional champion Game Winner can rest as easily. Without even touching on barnmate Coliseum, who won his debut last month at Del Mar like an absolute freak, two of the three big late-season stakes yielded winners who look to be serious threats to Game Winner’s reign next year. The Kentucky Jockey Club, run a couple of races after the Golden Rod on the same sloppy track, is not one of them, at least not at this point. Signalman, who finished a soundly beaten third at 67-1 behind Game Winner in the Juvenile, prevailed in the Kentucky Jockey Club at 7-2 in a final time so modest that it resulted in a winning Beyer of only 84, and that after drawing a perfect trip. But the Remsen certainly was one of those races that produced a very real threat to Game Winner next year. Maximus Mischief, who aired in his first two career starts at Parx, proved he’s the real deal in the Remsen, willfully rationing his ample early speed and winning off despite spending the last three eighths of a mile running on a rail that, even if it wasn’t as bad as it was earlier in the card, was still not the place to be. Notably, Maximus Mischief was assigned a 97 Beyer for his Remsen to go along with a 94 and a 98 in his first and second starts. The only other 2-year-old this year to earn three Beyers of 90 or higher, let alone three straight, is Game Winner. Improbable, also a barnmate of Game Winner, earned a preliminary Beyer of 96 for winning the Los Al Futurity by five lengths at 1-5 while, like Maximus Mischief, stretching his unbeaten streak to three. But Improbable is unlike Maximus Mischief, or any other prominent member of his generation, in the sense that so far, he seems to have done only what was absolutely required of him. Improbable won his debut in late September at Santa Anita in grinding style. He was flashier winning the Street Sense Stakes on the Breeders’ Cup Friday undercard, getting the same 93 Beyer that Game Winner received. But Improbable’s Street Sense and Los Al Futurity were similar in that, right when it looked in midstretch as though he was going on to another grinding win, he suddenly flipped a switch late and applied himself. His lead in the Street Sense exploded in the late stages to reach just over seven lengths at the wire, and the same was the case late on Saturday, when he suddenly putting big distance very late between himself and the remainder of the field. In other words, I think there is a lot more to Improbable than we have seen so far. And given what we’ve seen so far, that is a tantalizing prospect.