LEXINGTON, Ky. – Wesley Ward has four horses guaranteed a spot in the main body of the field for Friday’s third edition of the Grade 2, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. He trains all three also-eligibles hoping for a spot in the field. But, in the end, the locally based horseman might just need one horse.

Golden Pal is among the shortest-priced favorites in the Breeders’ Cup 2-year-old races. Golden Pal, who by design is coming to the race off an 11-week layoff, was installed as the 8-5 favorite on the morning line by Mike Battaglia.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With one notable exception, capacity fields were the rule when entries for the five races for 2-year-olds were drawn for the Breeders’ Cup Friday card at Keeneland. The $2 million Juvenile Fillies got just seven starters when entries were drawn here late Monday afternoon, but four of those enter undefeated in what figures to be a championship-defining race. Its colt-and-gelding counterpart, the $2 million Juvenile, drew a full gate of 14, led by the brilliant Jackie’s Warrior.

The first time he came to America from Brazil, in 2001, Paulo Lobo was given five fillies, purchased as yearlings in 2000, to train by his backers at home. One was named Farda Amiga. In 2002, she won the Kentucky Oaks, the Alabama, and finished second to Azeri in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Lobo never has run another horse in a Breeders’ Cup race.

Regardless of the result of Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, Princess Noor already stands alone.

Princess Noor was the most expensive horse of the turbulent 2020 juvenile sales season, bringing $1.35 million at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training from Saudi businessman Amr Zedan, who competes as Zedan Racing. She is the only seven-figure horse of her crop to make it to the Breeders’ Cup.

LEXINGTON, KY. – How cold was it at Keeneland on Monday morning? So cold they could not open the main track for training as scheduled at 6 a.m. with temperatures having dipped into the mid-20s after midnight. The conditions created frozen clods of dirt to form, despite constant harrowing of the track starting at 3:30 a.m.

Oodnadatta will start in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday at Keeneland without the benefit of a stakes win in her brief career in Ireland. Judging from the company she faced in recent starts, the losses should not be held against the filly, who will be ridden by top Irish jockey Shane Foley.

Tacitus often has promised more than he has delivered, but he’ll try to make up for all that Saturday when he starts, unusually for him, as a longshot in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland.

Tacitus has won just one of his last 10 starts, and has been favored in six of his last nine races, including his last start, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, in which he was third as the 3-5 favorite.

“His last race was disappointing,” Mott said during a conference call Monday. “Wound up on the lead, because someone had to be.”

Trainer Brad Cox’s powerhouse lineup for this year’s Breeders’ Cup got just a bit deeper Monday when he decided that Owendale would join Knicks Go in the $1 million Dirt Mile on Saturday at Keeneland.

Cox had been on the fence with Owendale, saying that if Owendale passed the Breeders’ Cup he would go straight to the Grade 1 Clark later this month at Churchill Downs. But Owendale was part of Cox’s bulky list of final entries Monday. Florent Geroux was named to ride, Cox said.

LEXINGTON, KY. – The sensational Nashville, who has won his first two career starts by a combined margin of 21 lengths, will bypass the Breeders’ Cup Sprint to run instead in the Perryville Stakes on Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup undercard.

Wesley Ward pre-entered 10 youngsters in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, a race he won last year. Six of those also were pre-entered in the Juvenile Turf or Juvenile Fillies Turf, both run at a mile. Ward, known for his prowess with his globe-trotting 2-year-olds, is a master at placing young horses in a position for success. He said that a horse’s physical build and way of moving can be tells as to which will handle stretching out, and which ought to remain sprinters.