Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
History says Euros will figure
DEL MAR, Calif. – They are here in force, the Europeans, and if history is a guide, they’ll win at least one Breeders’ Cup race this weekend.
Every year since 2010, there has been at least one and as many as five (2013) overseasbased Breeders’ Cup winners. They’re not always the obvious horses, either. Karakontie, the lone 2014 winner, scored at 30-1 and since then the Euro winners went off at odds of 7-1, 6-1, 8-1, and 7-2. Who will it be this year? Let’s take a look at their Saturday chances.
TURF SPRINT
MARSHA might be Europe’s best sprinter at five furlongs over firm ground. Two things: Marsha initially was retired after she finished a distant second behind a freakish performance from Battaash in the Prix de l’Abbaye on Oct. 1. This is an afterthought race. Second, Marsha has only raced on straight courses. The turn in Del Mar’s five-furlong turf races comes up fast. The guess is Marsha won’t know what hit her.
COTAI GLORY barely has more turn experience than Marsha and isn’t as good. His first-morning training session here Wednesday was a minor disaster.
WASHINGTON DC has Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore in his corner. So, there’s that.
FILLY AND MARE TURF
SENGA is better on firm turf, and the soft ground Oct. 1 in the Prix de l’Opera surely contributed to an 11th-place finish. Her signature win came in the Group 1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks). That race was not good. The 13 horses behind Senga that finished the race have since compiled a record of 21-1-2-1, the lone win in a modest Group 3.
We say “that finished the race” because RHODODENDRON didn’t finish after bleeding and being eased. Rhododendron bounced back to narrowly defeat stablemate Hydrangea in the Opera, but she acts on all types of ground, and firm going won’t improve her like with some Euros. Post 14 is really dismal. She’ll need a lot of luck to crack the top three.
WUHEIDA was a very decent fourth in the Opera and is less exposed than Rhododendron and more likely to move up on firm going, all that at a better price. Wuheida, however, was shipped to Keeneland to start in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Oct. 14, but had to be scratched after developing a foot problem. The 1 1/8-mile trip is good, but it’s hard enough to win a Breeders’ Cup race with a horse directly pointed to it, harder still when the BC is Plan B.
Remember QUEEN’S TRUST? She beat Lady Eli in the 2016 Filly and Mare Turf. It’s true 1 1/8 miles is too short for her, but Queen’s Trust has been aimed here all season, absolutely needs firm going (note her strong fourth in the Prince of Wales’s over firm), and made a great appearance Wednesday morning. Strongly consider her for a placing.
NEZWAAH has run exactly one race, the Group 1 Pretty Polly in July, that might give her a shot. Might. She did travel powerfully that day, but the field was a cut below elite.
MILE
When LANCASTER BOMBER has run really poorly, as he did last out in the QE II, it is because he has been used as a pacemaker for Churchill. That’s both an excuse and an indictment. Allowed to race under his own merits in the Woodbine Mile, he was a solid second to World Approval, but while getting 12 pounds from the winner.
Is there much to like about ZELZAL? Trainer Jean-Claude Rouget is among Europe’s best. His four Breeders’ Cup starters have finished third, 10th, 13th, and 14th. This horse might prefer firm going, but has never run a race good enough to win Saturday. Company lines with the likes of Spectre and Vadamos leave one cold.
First Mondialiste, now SUEDOIS for sharp trainer David O’Meara. Don’t underrate his longer-sprint form – it’s certainly stronger form than anything Zelzal or Karar has done – and note that he was showing speed in those sprints. Now he has become a hold-up horse, and his sprint characteristics will serve him well on the Del Mar course. A major threat.
HOME OF THE BRAVE to
date has not been a Group 1level performer, and he has run 17 times.
RIBCHESTER is the big gun here, and it’s not often the BC Mile gets the leading Euro miler of the year. Too bad this race wasn’t his major target of the autumn, but that was the QE II, which came just two weeks ago, and in which Ribchester ran hard over soft ground to finish second. The turnaround is too fast to back him with any confidence, and he could get hung wide.
ROLY POLY has the same trip concerns as Ribchester with an even worse draw. She wants to go forward, but isn’t fast enough to outrun the horses drawn in posts 1 and 2. Her two recent good wins have come on the lead. It’s hard to get excited at a relatively modest price.
Karakontie won the Mile from post 14, the same post as KARAR. Karar is no Karakontie.
JUVENILE
U S NAVY FLAG is among the more accomplished European 2-year-olds to come to the Breeder’s Cup, which should make you ask yourself why he’s here. The horse appears to have surprised his own connections winning multiple Group 1’s. If O’Brien believed he were a European Classics horse for next spring, he’d be back in Ireland this weekend. The dirt try feels like an “everything to gain but nothing to lose” move, and the speed the horse showed to lead in his last two might do no more than put him in a position to eat a lot of dirt from post 1 Saturday.
TURF
TALISMANIC will be a big price for a legendary trainer whose best Breeders’ Cup days came a long time ago. One has to do a lot of projecting to make a case for a horse that hasn’t yet run well enough to win this. We don’t think he’s quite good enough, even if he comes forward.
HIGHLAND REEL, the 2016 winner, figures considerably shorter than his morning-line 5-1. On the one hand, the Champion Stakes two weeks ago was strictly a prep for this. On the other, he has not looked the same horse in 2017 as 2016 and is unlikely to sneak off on the lead like he did winning last year.
DECORATED KNIGHT is good enough to be a Breeders’ Cup horse but doesn’t have a race that really suits him since 1 1/4 miles is his best lick. His big win this year in the Group 1 Champion came in a weakerthan-par renewal. Not a toss, however.
ULYSSES is the one to beat here and on Wednesday morning looked like a horse that had traveled well. Don’t believe the talk about him being “taken out of the Champion Stakes” two weeks ago. The BC Turf always has been the goal for this horse. He was a solid fourth in it last year and is a far better horse now. Keep in mind his two defeats to super-filly Enable came when he gave her 15 pounds going 1 1/2 miles. The real deal.
CLIFFS OF MOHER took advantage of a falling-apart race to nab second in the Epsom Derby and has not come back to that performance yet. He’d be a major surprise.
SEVENTH HEAVEN is the sleeper here, and we’ll be using her at a long price. She was beaten just more than a length last year in the 1 1/4-mile Filly and Mare Turf, a race all the Euro experts said was too short for her. Well, this is 1 1/2 miles, she gets the ground she wants for the first time in three starts, and she’s a fresh horse.
CLASSIC
We’re not sure either Euro has much chance but prefer WAR DECREE to his more esteemed stablemate CHURCHILL. Churchill was exposed in the St. James’s Palace, and the program since has mainly been to maintain his reputation for sire duty. If he finished, say, seventh in the BC Mile, a race he better suits, that would not exactly send him off to stud on a high note. It’s War Decree, with that all-weather start and a light second-half campaign, who looks like the stable’s better hope. And he will be a price.