The sprinters Hope Road and Imagination worked five furlongs in a scorching 57.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Friday for Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 1.
Both 4-year-olds, Hope Road and Imagination were part of a small team of runners trained by Bob Baffert who worked on Friday.
The filly Hope Road, winner of the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 23 for her third stakes win, is scheduled to run in the BC Filly and Mare Sprint along with stablemates Richi and Splendora.
The flashy workouts are finished for She Feels Pretty, who will start as the leading domestic hope in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 1.
She Feels Pretty breezed a half-mile in 48 seconds at Keeneland on Oct. 10, with “a huge gallop-out”, trainer Cherie DeVaux said. On Friday at Keeneland, She Feels Pretty worked the same distance in a more leisurely 49 seconds.
“She had a nice gallop-out, but we kept her from doing too much,” DeVaux said.
DeVaux described Friday’s workout as “a nice maintenance half, well in hand.”
Del Mar
Friday, Oct. 24
Weather: Cloudy
Temp.: 54°
Track: Fast
DEL MAR, Calif. – With the majority of this year’s Breeders’ Cup contenders sticking close to home for their final works, there has been very little to report at Del Mar since the racetrack opened for business Monday. The action did pick up to some degree Friday with four potential Breeders’ Cup starters turning in their final major preps over a fast track on an overcast and somewhat dank morning.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien on Friday was scheduled to ship eight of his nine Breeders’ Cup pre-entrants to Del Mar from Ireland.
Beautify, one of three he pre-entered in the Juvenile Fillies Turf, did not ship because she did not come out of her last work well, O’Brien told Daily Racing Form.
O’Brien is expected to run only Precise in the Juvenile Fillies Turf. True Love, who was pre-entered in this race, has first preference and will run in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, O’Brien said.
In a year where he was a rare non-factor in the 3-year-old division, trainer Todd Pletcher surprisingly finds himself in contention for a record-extending ninth Eclipse Award as champion trainer on the strength of an older male division and a 2-year-old class that brings him to the Breeders’ Cup with several live chances.
It’s a position he couldn’t fathom after the first six months of the year, when he won just six graded stakes, three of which were Grade 1s.
The 14th and final race Breeders’ Cup race at Del Mar next weekend is the $2 million Filly and Mare Turf with a post time of 5:25 p.m. Pacific on Saturday, Nov. 1.
In Britain, the race will start at 1:25 a.m. on Sunday, very late but as good of an excuse as any for owner and breeder Jeff Smith to be awake.
Smith races See The Fire, a two-time group stakes winner who has been second or third in five Group 1 races in Britain and France in the last two years.
“I’ll be up,” Smith said in a phone interview on Thursday.
As the picture for the Breeders’ Cup began to come into focus with Wednesday’s release of pre-entries, the stallion rosters for 2026 are also becoming clearer.
Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky released its roster of stallions and stud fees for 2026 on Wednesday, and it has an argument for the strongest list of newcomers in the country. Taking up residence in the stud barn following their respective Breeders’ Cup races will be Sierra Leone, Fierceness, and Citizen Bull – all already Breeders’ Cup winners and Eclipse Award champions.
White Abarrio will be moving to a new distance when he seeks to win a second career Breeders’ Cup race in the Grade 1, $1 million Dirt Mile on Nov. 1 at Del Mar.
“He’s already won the Classic,” said trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. “If he could add the Dirt Mile to his résumé, it would be a pretty impressive résumé that puts him in elite company.”
A year ago, for the first time since 2019, an American horse won the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and while More Than Looks was retired without racing again, the two behind him last November, Johannes and Notable Speech, are among 15 horses pre-entered in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Seven of the last 14 years, Aidan O’Brien has trained the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner. He has won the race’s last three editions, and Puerto Rico was thought to be the O’Brien-trained favorite for this year’s Juvenile Turf. Puerto Rico wasn’t pre-entered. O’Brien still has the favorite.
