ARCADIA, Calif. – The field for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff was expected to be trimmed, and the odds for early favorite Close Hatches were expected to drop. Instead, the opposite occurred over the weekend.
Close Hatches misfired Sunday at Keeneland, finishing fourth as the 1-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes. It was the first loss of the season for the Bill Mott-trained, Juddmonte Farms-owned filly.
Her Emmynency stamped herself as a serious contender for the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf with an impressive win in the $100,000 Surfer Girl at Santa Anita on Sunday. With Joe Talamo aboard, she stalked the early pace while sitting behind horses along the rail, and when a hole opened up at the top of the stretch, she burst to the lead with an eye-catching move.
Wise Dan has been favored in his last 17 starts and an odds-on favorite in 15 of them, and after winning the Shadwell Turf Mile by one length Saturday, he will be favored again when he tries to win the Breeders’ Cup Mile for the third straight year.
Wise Dan had his head turned when the gate sprang in the Shadwell, but that was the last anxious moment he had. He won comfortably without having to run especially hard or escape trouble and seems to have bounced out of his race in great shape.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Michelle Nevin doesn’t have as many 2-year-olds as trainer Todd Pletcher – nor does just about anyone else – but last weekend, Nevin won just as many graded stakes for 2-year-olds as did Pletcher.
On Saturday, Nevin won the Grade 1 Frizette with By the Moon, and she came right back Sunday to take the Grade 2 Matron with Paulassilverlining.
“Best weekend ever,” Nevin said when asked to describe the feeling of winning those two stakes in 24 hours.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher’s talented 2-year-old roster was on display for all to see the last 2 1/2 weeks, as the six-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer won 11 races with his juveniles from south Florida to Southern California, New York to Kentucky.
While Grade 1 stakes winners Angela Renee (Chandelier), Daredevil (Champagne), and Carpe Diem (Breeders’ Futurity) are likely Breeders’ Cup bound – as is Frizette third-place finisher Feathered – Pletcher is making plans for several of his other impressive winners.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Phil Sims now can lay claim to two of the most prestigious races at his home track, and that’s all right with him.
Sims, based at Keeneland since 1980, won the Grade 1 Spinster on Sunday with Don’t Tell Sophia, bookending his 2009 win in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup with Hot Cha Cha.
“Yeah, we just keep chugging along, picking up a nice one every now and then,” Sims, 52, said Monday. “I really appreciate all the well-wishes I’ve been getting. It makes all the time and effort you put into this game worthwhile.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Deceptive Vision earned a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf by virtue of her victory in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes on Sept. 14 at Woodbine, but trainer Malcolm Pierce and owner Sam-Son Farm are leaning toward keeping her at Woodbine for the Grade 1, $500,000 E.P. Taylor Stakes on Oct. 19.
“That’s our plan,” Pierce said. “We think with the traveling and all of that stuff, [the E.P. Taylor] is a Grade 1 race where we have to walk over half a mile from her stall to run her.”
Although narrowly beaten for the second straight year in the $300,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Saturday, defending Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile titlist Goldencents seemed to solidify his status as the one to beat again this year.
Goldencents pressed a strong pace of 21.98 and 44.25 seconds in the six-furlong race and drew off through midstretch beneath Rafael Bejarano but was caught at the wire by the Hong Kong-based Rich Tapestry as the 4-5 favorite.
For all the drama and excitement of Sunday’s Group 1 Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp – in which the top four finishers were three necks apart – the race, at least in the immediate wake of the running, seemingly did little to alter the European cast expected to participate in the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita.
The final major preps for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies were held last weekend, with longshots taking both the Alcibiades and Frizette over rain-soaked tracks.
British shipper Peace and War paid $48.20 after rallying from far back to take a fast-early, slow-late running of the Alcibiades by a half-length, while By the Moon was prominent every step of the way while rolling to a 2 1/4-length victory in the Frizette. She paid $50.50.
