The first thing to know about the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at this relatively early date is that we don’t really know much.
The Pilgrim, the New York prep for the big dance, comes Friday, the Bourbon at Keeneland two days later. Several key overseas races, including the Jean-Luc Lagardere this weekend, have yet to be run, and not for a couple weeks will the overseas contingent come into sharp focus.
The second thing to know about: Ireland-based trainer Aidan O’Brien or England-based trainer Charlie Appleby is probably winning it.
O’Brien landed his first of seven Juvenile Turf wins in 2011 and has captured the last three editions. Since that O’Brien breakthrough, he or Appleby has won 10 of the 14 renewals.
O’Brien often sends two runners for the race. He also often reveals which two only a few days before his Breeders’ Cup horses ship stateside. While Breeders’ Cup this week lists only one prospective starter trained by O’Brien, Gstaad, others figure to enter the picture.
Gstaad could start Oct. 11 in the Group 1 Dewhurst, for which he was co-favored in antepost wagering Wednesday. Gstaad’s a high-profile colt, an early developing Royal Ascot winner with a pair of narrow Group 1 defeats – in the six-furlong Prix Morny and in the seven-furlong National – since at Ascot in June he won the 20-runner Coventry by three lengths.
There are two European horses whose connections have already publicly expressed strong interest in Del Mar – Oceans Four, who won a race in France last month, and Humidity, second in the Group 2 Royal Lodge at Newmarket.
The Appleby-trained Godolphin colt as of this week considered a likely Juvenile Turf runner is Wild Desert, defeated by a head in the Grade 1 Summer at Woodbine, where Wild Desert nearly blew a turn and closed more than five lengths from the stretch call to the wire.
Argos, who got a better trip, won the Summer and through the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series earned automatic fees-paid entry into the Juvenile Turf. He would mark the first Breeders’ Cup runner for young trainer Riley Mott.
The Pilgrim at Aqueduct looks wide open and will yield at least one Juvenile Turf runner. Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won his only Juvenile Turf with Pluck in 2010, has two Pilgrim runners, Scope and Teleport, but sent a stronger prospect, Final Score, to Keeneland for the Bourbon. Final Score cruised to a 4 1/2-length victory in the With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga and looked good doing it, and he – like three other Pletcher-trained stakes 2-year-olds at Keeneland this weekend – will be favored.
The Keeneland-based Street Beast skipped the Bourbon after winning twice in 10 days at Kentucky Downs in late August and early September. Street Beast impressed in the $1 million Juvenile Mile, which he won by seven lengths, and on Sept. 27 at Keeneland turned in a good grass work toward the Juvenile Turf, trainer Ben Colebrook said.
Hey Nay Nay, California’s leading hope, has started his career with three wins and, like Street Beast, will come to the Juvenile Turf a fresh horse, his most recent race a front-running Sept. 7 score in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf.
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