Even if Thorpedo Anna’s misfire last weekend softened the field for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, the trainer of Argentina Group 1 winner Sarawak Rim acknowledged his filly faces a tall order.
“Distaffs are always tough,” Ignacio Correas said. “There’s not an easy Distaff.”
Correas would know, having won the 2019 Distaff with Blue Prize, an Argentine who was in the U.S. more than two years and won two U.S. Grade 1s prior to winning the Distaff at Santa Anita in her second try in the race. This year is different, even if the field does not include 2024 winner Thorpedo Anna.
Sarawak Rim is 4 for 5 after winning the Group 1 Gran Premio Criadores, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race on May 1 at Hipodromo Argentino de Palermo. Six months and 6,000 miles later, Sarawak Rim will make her U.S. debut against a Distaff field that will be tough.
Seismic Beauty and Cavalieri, Grade 1 winners trained by Bob Baffert, are new Distaff favorites on the Daily Racing Form early line, listed 5-2 and 3-1, respectively. The third choice is Nitrogen, wide-trip runner-up to Gin Gin last week at Keeneland in the Grade 1 Spinster. Gin Gin and Nitrogen finished more than eight lengths in front of fourth-place Thorpedo Anna.
Sarawak Rim is the latest in a long line of South American fillies and mares to contest the BC Distaff, including winners Bayakoa in 1989 and 1990, Paseana in 1992, and Blue Prize. All three were fully acclimated in North America. As for Sarawak Rim, the calendar was not on her side.
“They usually take six months [to acclimate],” Correas said. Sarawak Rim arrived in the U.S. in July. “She’s going to be in her fifth month when she runs, so maybe she’s going to be a month short. But she’s coming around really, really well, and I have no doubt that next year she’s going to be a very good filly.”
She will have a new trainer. Sarawak Rim is entered in the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, and Correas plans to retire after the Breeders’ Cup. Sarawak Rim will be his final starter.
Sarawak Rim, 4, was foaled in Argentina in September 2021. She is six months younger than Northern Hemisphere 4-year-olds. Correas said Sarawak Rim came around more quickly than many South American imports.
She jogged and galloped for 1 1/2 months after arriving at Keeneland, and in mid-August commenced workouts.
“She’s gotten better and better and better,” Correas said. “The last three or four weeks she surprised me. I worked her a few times in company, but her [Sept. 30] work, she went on her own and that was an amazing work.”
Sarawak Rim has not skipped a beat in her Keeneland workout pattern and ships to Del Mar on Oct. 23. The tentative plan is breeze her over the Del Mar track on Oct. 27 or 28. Sarawak Rim, who raced close to the pace in Argentina, is likely to be outrun early in the Distaff.
“I’m not going to send her,” Correas said, laughing.
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