Breeders’ Cup Returns to Kentucky

After spending three years in California, the Breeders’ Cup returns to the Bluegrass State for the first time since 2011 when it was hosted by Churchill Downs. This year, however, Keeneland gets its first shot at hosting the Championships and the Lexington-based venue switched its main track from synthetic to conventional dirt last fall just for the occassion. Four events highlight day one of the Breeders’ Cup with a strong group of fillies and mares taking center stage in the $2,000,000 GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

Godolphin’s “TDN Rising Star” Wedding Toast (Street Sense) is the tepid morning-line favorite off a trio of strong victories at Belmont Park in the GII Ruffian S. May 9, GI Ogden Phipps S. June 6 and GI Beldam Invitational S. Sept. 26. With all of those victories coming around one turn, the test facing this miss will be duplicating that form going two turns in Lexington, but she does have a two-turn win on her resume in the 2013 GIII Comely S. A pair of Grade I-winning older mares, Sheer Drama (Burning Roma) and Got Lucky (A.P. Indy), will certainly pose a threat to that favorite, but so will a strong trio of sophomores headlined by ultra-consistent GI Cotillion S. heroine I’m a Chatterbox (Munnings), whose versatile running style could prove key in this test.

Another “TDN Rising Star” tops the field of the GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in Teresa Viola oftlineRacing Stables and West Point Thoroughbreds’ Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song). Never off the board in seven starts, the impressive GI Woodward S. winner’s biggest threat seems to come in the form of GI Woodbine Mile runner-up Lea (First Samurai), winner of the 2014 GI Donn H.

It will be hard to follow in the hoofprints of last year’s GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Lady Eli (Divine Park), who is still undefeated, but Larkin Armstrong’s Harmonize (Scat Daddy) will look to put on a show of her own this year. Graduating at second asking in the P.G. Johnson S. Sept. 3, the bay showed a new dimension when winning this venue’s GIII Jessamine S. Oct. 7.

John Oxley’s GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf contender Airoforce (Colonel John) also boasts a win over this course in the GIII Bourbon S. With Europeans winning six of the last eight Juvenile Turfs, the undefeated gray looks to make it two in a row for America after Hootenanny (Quality Road)’s victory last term. Click here to view the TDN’s Breeders’ Cup Friday special edition.