This is the last major weekend for Breeders’ Cup preps, and Belmont and Keeneland lead the way with stakes-packed cards. Belmont offers six graded stakes, four of them Grade 1’s, ostensibly topped by the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup. Keeneland has five graded events, three of which are Grade 1’s, headed by the $1 million Shadwell Turf Mile.
Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity
A week ago, trainer Chad Brown finished first and second in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic with Big Blue Kitten and Slumber. He is equally strong in the filly-and-mare turf division, and on Saturday, he could start as many as four runners in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl at Belmont Park.
Brown has won the Flower Bowl in two of the last four years. On Saturday, he will run back the 2014 winner, Stephanie’s Kitten. Stacelita won the race for Brown in 2011.
It is fascinating to watch the great trainers get their horses ready for the biggest race of their lives in the Oct. 31 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland. Last week, it was Richard Mandella winning an exhibition race with Beholder, whose 99 Beyer Speed Figure meant absolutely nothing. On Saturday, it is Shug McGaughey’s call to pass up the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont to run Honor Code in the $400,000 Kelso Handicap on the same day there, a race against lesser competition at a less-taxing distance. I love it all.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – As far as Wesley Ward is concerned, the preceding 11 months don’t much matter. This is crunch time. This is when it starts to count.
Judy the Beauty, Ward’s pride and joy, begins her march toward a championship defense Saturday as a solid favorite in the Grade 2, $250,000 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland. Now 6, Judy the Beauty won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and a divisional Eclipse Award last year, and “everything we’ve done since then has been about repeating,” said Ward.
The $150,000 Roamin Rachel Stakes on Saturday at Parx Racing has attracted a Who’s Who of the Mid-Atlantic’s filly and mare sprint division.
Favoritism in the six-furlong race will go to Stonetastic, who is being considered for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint by trainer Kelly Breen. She is coming off a powerful optional-claiming victory Sept. 1 at Parx, earning a 109 Beyer Speed Figure.
A week after the Rodeo Drive at Santa Anita shed light on some of the top U.S. contenders for the Oct. 31 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, this Saturday’s Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park is expected to do the same – albeit under vastly different turf conditions.
Unlike the Rodeo Drive, which was run in hot weather and on a firm course, the Flower Bowl likely will be contested on yielding or soft ground, with heavy rain expected in New York leading up to Saturday’s race.
On Sunday in Paris, the 5-year-old mare Treve will run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s most prestigious and difficult prize.
Four weeks later, on the last Saturday of the month, the 5-year-old mare Beholder will take on a similar challenge when she meets American Pharoah and company in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, North America’s richest Thoroughbred event.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – What figures to be the greatest month in the nearly 80-year history of Keeneland Race Course opens this weekend with riveting matchups in traditional features such as the Phoenix and Spinster stakes.
But wait, there’s more!
Indeed, you’d love to be paid a dollar for every time you hear “Breeders’ Cup” mentioned at the Keeneland meet, which gets away to a running start Friday with a 10-race card highlighted by two graded stakes, the Grade 3 Phoenix and Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades.
This year’s Breeders’ Cup is four weeks away, but trainer Keith Desormeaux still can’t stop thinking about last year’s Breeders’ Cup, where his Texas Red rallied from last to win the $2 million Juvenile by 6 1/2 lengths at Santa Anita.
Trainer Doug O’Neill is considering the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf for both Jakaby Jade and Gomo.
Jakaby Jade took advantage when the rail opened up to win the $101,000 Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf in her first start in North America. The horse who vacated the rail, which might have cost her a win in the one-mile race, was Gomo, who finished third.
“It was a good race for both of them,” said O’Neill.
He plans on running Jakaby Jade in the $100,000 Surfer Girl at Santa Anita on Oct. 10.
