BOSSIER CITY, La. – Got Shades has established himself as the top 2-year-old of the Louisiana Downs meet with wins in the $50,000 Sunny’s Halo last month and the $100,000 Sunday Silence on Saturday. Now, he could be headed to Keeneland, with the long-range goal of making the Breeders’ Cup.

Trainer Danny Pish said Tuesday that Got Shades could make his next start in the Grade 3, $150,000 Bourbon, a 1 1/16-mile turf race at Keeneland on Oct. 6. It is a Win and You’re In for the $1 million BC Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 1.

The lineup for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita figures to be shaped by a couple of major questions:

1. Is Groupie Doll really as good as she was last year when she dominated the seven-furlong race as an odds-on favorite?

2. Are the connections of some of the more versatile filly-mare routers so respectful (fearful?) of two-time champion Royal Delta in the BC Distaff that perhaps they’ll opt instead for the Filly-Mare Sprint?

Little has gone right for Fort Larned since he won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic, but Fort Larned still has time to get right and properly defend his Classic crown Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

Fort Larned on Saturday morning at Churchill Downs trained for the first time since a pulled hind-end muscle forced his withdrawal Aug. 29 from the Aug. 31 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga. Trainer Ian Wilkes plans to send Fort Larned to the Sept. 28 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park -- but little Wilkes has planned this season has unfolded as envisioned.

Regardless of whether The Fugue, winner of this past Saturday’s Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes competes in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf Nov. 2, or is instead raced against males in the $3 million Turf that same day, a European seems likely to be the Filly and Mare Turf favorite.

In addition to The Fugue, Great Britain-based Dank is under consideration for the race, and she already humbled many of North America’s best turf mares with a 4 1/4-length romp in the Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Aug. 17, a race that earned her a 108 Beyer Speed Figure.

For the first time since its inaugural running at Monmouth Park in 2007, the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile will be run on the Friday program.

At a mile and 70 yards, Corinthian splashed through the Monmouth slop to earn a 119 Beyer, which remains the race’s top figure. After subsequent wins by Albertus Maximus (102), Furthest Land (105), Dakota Phone (104), Caleb’s Posse (111) and Tapizar (104), the average figure through six Dirt Miles is 107.5. Albertus Maximus and Furthest Land ran on a synthetic surface.

Sweet Reason and She’s a Tiger are the most prominent names on the list of early probables for the Grade 1, $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, while Untapable joined the club last Saturday with her win in the Grade 2 Pocahontas at Churchill Downs.  

The Pocahontas was the first "Win and You’re In" race for the BC Juvenile Fillies, a 1 1/16-mile race that will be held at Santa Anita on Saturday, Nov. 2. The remaining challenge races are the Chandelier at Santa Anita on Sept. 28, and the Frizette at Belmont on Oct. 5.

If there is a horse in North America that can keep Wise Dan from winning his second straight Breeders’ Cup Mile, that horse has yet to reveal himself. Obviously, California’s best, has won all his one-mile races this season, but even on his home turf he was no match for Wise Dan in the 2012 BC Mile.

Major stakes victories don’t come as readily as they once did for trainer D. Wayne Lukas, but in 2013 they have come. Lukas won his first classic in 13 years when Oxbow upset the Preakness. Lukas won his first Travers in 18 years when Will Take Charge nailed Moreno on the wire.

In Strong Mandate, Lukas may have a horse who can give him his first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile victory in 17 years. Lukas, 78, is the all-time leader in Breeders’ Cup wins with 19, five of which have come in the $2 million Juvenile, which will have its 30th running on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

The $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 2 may have a female presence.

The Fugue earned a fees-paid berth to the BC Turf, as part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, with a victory in Saturday’s $907,500 Irish Champion Stakes against males at Leopardstown in Ireland.

After the race trainer John Gosden said The Fugue, a 4-year-old filly owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, remains a candidate for the rich Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris on Oct. 6, but mentioned the Breeders’ Cup as a long-term goal.

Finding contenders in early September for the one-mile Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita is both easy and hard. It’s easy if all you do is look at stakes on turf for 2-year-old fillies held so far this year, and hard because those races do not figure to yield many starters for an event that is still two months away.

There have been just two turf stakes in major racing centers for juvenile fillies on turf thus far, one at Del Mar and one at Saratoga, so the pool of candidates is still small.