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By Marcus Hersh , Daily Racing Form
It comes down to this: In Europe, Thoroughbreds are turf horses. Racing in America has a heart made of dirt.
Lashkari in 1984 and Pebbles in 1985 won the first and second editions of the Breeders’ Cup Turf. That’s one bookend over time: The other is the nine overseas winners during the last two Breeders’ Cups, five at Del Mar in 2021, four at Keeneland in 2020.
Americans somehow swept the 2-year-old grass races on Breeders’ Cup Friday two years ago, but Europeans came back to win all four Saturday grass contests.
There are very good Americans entered Saturday in the Turf Sprint, the Filly and Mare Turf, the Mile, and the Turf, but let’s set the over-under on European wins at 2 1/2.
Turf
Five European runners in this race, and 17 European ship-in winners of the Turf since 2000. Ireland-based females won the two Turfs at Keeneland – Found in 2015, Tarnawa in 2020 – but the only girl here is War Like Goddess, bred and campaigned in America.
There’s no standout among the Europeans, but there doesn’t have to be, since War Like Goddess is the only horse from this continent capable of taking first prize.
Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby have two of the favorites, Nations Pride and Rebel’s Romance. The morning line says Rebel’s Romance is the chalk; Appleby says it’ll be Nations Pride. Let’s go with Appleby, who has given the mount on Nations Pride to top stable jockey William Buick.
Nations Pride has made as many starts in America this year, three, as overseas, finishing a pace-compromised second in the Belmont Derby, winning the Saratoga Derby Invitational by 1 3/4 lengths, and rolling to a 6 1/4-length score in the Jockey Club Derby Invitational on Sept. 17. Nations Pride beat a very nice colt in Annapolis two back, but that was farther than Annapolis wants to run, and how soft was the most recent bunch Nations Pride thrashed? Very. Second-place The Grey Wizard came back five weeks later and finished fifth in a first-level allowance race.
Nations Pride blew out his rivals in the Newmarket Stakes this past spring but had everything his way over inferior competition there and went on to finish eighth in the Epsom Derby. Granted, Yibir won the 2021 Turf as a 3-year-old after winning the Belmont Derby earlier in the year. At Del Mar last year, Appleby in the days before the race all but said Yibir was the major hope, Canadian International winner Walton Street, who would finish ninth, a plucky but ultimately overmatched runner.
Walton Street, like Rebel’s Romance, raced in Germany before coming to North America, but he was an older horse than 4-year-old Rebel’s Romance, and where Walton Street was a well-beaten third in Germany – albeit behind the last two winners of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Alpinista and Torquator Tasso – Rebel’s Romance won his two Group 1s there in August and September. Rebel’s Romance began his career on dirt and even traveled to New York for the Belmont Stakes, only to be scratched because of an injury, and has gone 4 for 4 since being switched to grass this year. He’s powerful and rugged, perhaps not a dream ride, races in a hood and lacks speed, coming from far back in his pair of Group 1 wins. He appeared to wait on horses after making the lead in both German starts. His Timeform ratings check in at a competitive 120. Nations Pride will lay closer to the lead, and connections evidently believe he’s better.
Mishriff wears blinkers for the first time while making the final start of a career in which he’s earned nearly $16 million. Naturally a 1 1/4-mile horse in Europe, he can get 1 1/2 miles on a flat turning track, as he did winning the 2021 Sheema Classic in Dubai over two excellent Japanese fillies, Chrono Genesis and Loves Only You. Winless this year, Mishriff caught soft ground he doesn’t like his last two starts, and in a couple earlier races over firmer footing, he simply stood in his stall when the starting gate sprang. Mishriff might be getting too clever for his own good.
Aidan O’Brien won the 2015 Turf here with Found and has two for this race, the apparently overmatched Stone Age, who might push the pace, and the enigmatic Broome, who nearly won the 2021 Turf at Del Mar. Broome is a habitually bad gate horse, getting away poorly in the BC Turf and in a disappointing fourth-place finish as the favorite in the Sword Dancer at Saratoga this summer. At Del Mar, he made a huge, premature, wide turn move, which left him vulnerable to Yibir’s late acceleration, and if Broome could reproduce that performance, he could win. His 2021 form looks about the same as this year’s. Don’t rule him out.
Mile
Modern Games we North Americans know well, and it’s difficult imagining him not playing a key role in the Mile.
He was dominant in the Juvenile Turf last year at Del Mar and even more so in September, when he turned the Woodbine Mile into one-horse show. Overseas, Modern Games also has thrived, winning the French 2000 Guineas around a turn in his first start of the year and turning in a fine performance to be second Oct. 15 in the straight-course Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Modern Games hits a higher level around turns and firmer footing than he does going straight over soft ground, and his showing last month at Ascot confirms his continued strong form. Even in defeat this season, Modern Games held third behind top-class winner Vadeni going farther than ideal in the French Derby, and in the one-mile Sussex at Goodwood, he came closest to Europe’s best miler in years, Baaeed.
While Modern Games clearly merits favoritism, Kinross has higher Timeform ratings, in part because Modern Games has been getting a 3-year-old weight break. Kinross shows only sprint starts on his form, but connections firmly believe a North American mile, which requires less stamina than European races over the same distance, falls within his scope. Kinross turned his career around after he was gelded and hit a peak this year at age 5. He’s tactically versatile but most naturally a stalker, deploying an effective turn of foot that’s more steady than brilliant. He comfortably won the Prix de la Foret, the same race Space Blues used as a catapult to BC Mile success, but the competition there, including Mile starter Malavath, lacked luster. He wasn’t hard used in that race nor in his six-furlong British Champions Sprint win, and Kinross likely still has fuel in the tank. Is he good enough to overcome post 13? That’s questionable.
Order of Australia we also know well. He wasn’t just a 73-1 winner of the 2020 BC Mile at Keeneland, he was the 73-1 winner breaking from post 14, leading home an Aidan O’Brien-trained trifecta. Order of Australia ran poorly in fall 2021 at Keeneland but came out of the race injured and didn’t start again until June. He was no match for Baaeed or Modern Games in the Sussex nor for Mile runner Dreamloper in the Prix Jacques Le Marois, and his third in the Coolmore Turf Mile here last month, while solid, won’t win him a second BC Mile. But be warned: Order of Australia validated his 2020 Mile upset in several 2021 European races, and O’Brien insists the horse’s entire 2022 campaign was aimed at Saturday’s start.
You’d have to favor Order of Australia over Dreamloper, despite the mare’s 5 1/2-length pasting of him in the Marois. That was a strange race, with favored Coroebus breaking down badly in the homestretch while right next to Order of Australia. Dreamloper showed pace and clung to the fence, running better than she ever had before. The Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan she won this past spring was frankly a soft spot, and the mare doesn’t have enough pace to make the front like she did in the Marois.
Pogo is the fastest Euro here – maybe as fast as any of the Americans. He consistently leads in seven-furlong contests, and somehow, at age 6, Pogo is having a career season. He beat Kinross in May and lost to him by a nose in July, which either puts a shine on Pogo’s form or makes you wonder about Kinross’s.
Filly and Mare Turf
How about this one: An overseas horse or one trained by Chad Brown has won the last 10 renewals of this race. There’s a good chance that streak continues, with the Brown-trained In Italian a major threat and three Europeans capable of capturing the Filly and Mare Turf.
Let’s start with the two who can’t win, Toy and Mise En Scene. Mise En Scene must have some sort of buried form to motivate her connections coming here – but hidden it is. Post 13 proved her undoing in the 2021 Juvenile Fillies, but 2022 has been a lost campaign so far. Toy did finish second in the Irish Oaks, a weak race this season, and you can guess at the nature of her presence here seeing all the races where she went to the front. Her trainer, Aidan O’Brien, has a far more qualified entrant, Tuesday. Toy’s task could be to keep In Italian honest – if she has the pace to keep up.
Nashwa should vie for favoritism with In Italian. She’s an excellent 3-year-old filly and might still have mild improvement in her this year. She has never run a bad race and has turned in several excellent ones. Her top performance on ratings was neither her win in the French Oaks nor the Nassau Stakes, but her last-start loss in the Prix de l’Opera, where Place du Carrousel, who surely enjoyed the very soft going more than Nashwa, ran her down. Nashwa has employed a range of styles, going to the front a furlong into the Opera, coming from last winning the Nassau.
Nashwa had a nose on third-place Above the Curve in the Opera; maybe lightly raced Above the Curve is progressive, or maybe she got over the bad ground at Longchamp better than most. She’s a scopey, lumbering kind of filly who might grow into herself more as a 4-year-old. Defeated going around sharp left-handed bends at Chester in the Cheshire Oaks, she became a Group 1 winner beating Prix de l’Opera heroine Place du Carrousel in the Prix Saint-Alary in May. Place du Carrousel wasn’t as good then as she got in the fall, and watching Above the Curve race, one gets the sense the Filly and Mare Turf’s 1 3/16 miles will be on the sharp side for her.
Which gets us to Tuesday, a very interesting entrant. Tuesday showed some speed finishing third in the English 1000 Guineas, a straight mile, and showed some speed finishing second when Homeless Songs ran out of her skin in the Irish 1000 Guineas, a one-turn mile. Those races looked like mere tune-ups when Tuesday was taken to the back of the field in the 1 1/2-mile Oaks at Epsom, finishing furiously to win a head bob over favored Emily Upjohn, Nashwa left a few lengths behind them.
Tuesday bounced to the moon coming back too quickly in the Irish Derby, then ran the best race anyone in this field has produced finishing second to subsequent Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Alpinista in the Yorkshire Oaks. That’s a 1 1/2-mile race, and if you watch, you can see Tuesday, really flying, go just slightly flat in the dying strides. Is it possible the winner of the 1 1/2-mile Oaks prefers a shorter trip? What she doesn’t prefer is the soft ground she got in her two French starts this fall. Watch out for Tuesday on Saturday.
Turf Sprint
Naval Crown and Creative Force, the Godolphin duo for the Turf Sprint, are just fine – Group 1 performers on their day. Neither has raced shorter than six furlongs, and the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint doesn’t seem like a great place to try that for the first time. Emaraaty Ana came to Del Mar and finished fourth in the 2021 Turf Sprint: This is a deeper, tougher race, and 6-year-old Emaraaty Ana is a year older, no faster. He comes from off the pace, while Flotus will be closer in the early stages, likely farther behind in the later portion. Go Bears Go began racing in cheek pieces a few starts ago and now is showing good gate speed. He won’t match Golden Pal’s steam and almost certainly won’t be winning.
Five Euros are in the Turf Sprint, won here in 2020 by the Ireland-based filly Glass Slippers. Glass Slippers didn’t have American star Golden Pal to beat, but Highfield Princess, easily the top Euro here, just might be capable of taking the fight to Golden Pal.
Highfield Princess comes to Keeneland rated a far stronger sprinter than Glass Slippers two years ago, having risen from a modest handicapper during her 2020 campaign to become a good horse in 2021 and, possibly, a great one this season. Her second to 2021 BC Mile winner Space Blues two summers ago in the City of York Stakes hinted at Highfield Princess’s quality, but no one could have seen her recent run of success coming.
The City of York is a seven-furlong contest, and that’s distance the mare mainly raced during the early phase of her career; she’s better going shorter. The six-furlong Duke of York Clipper Logistic Stakes in May marked Highfield Princess’s breakout. There, she raced with barely contained fire under regular rider Jason Hart, going off like a powder keg when Hart gave the mare her head a furlong out. Highfield Princess took a step back at Royal Ascot, sixth behind Naval Crown and Creative Force, but following a freshening she came back stronger. She hit a new peak and won her first Group 1 in the 6 1/2-furlong Prix Maurice de Gheest, though the Group 1 Nunthorpe over five furlongs and the Group 1 Flying Five, another five-furlong dash, showed Highfield Princes at her best.
In the Nunthorpe, she gave crack 2-year-old filly The Platinum Queen 24 pounds, let her lead for a half-mile, and blew past her with a wicked turn of foot. Highfield Princes is happy leading, too, as she did in the Flying Five at The Curragh, where another blistering late turn of foot carried her to a 3 1/4-length win. She has run turns plenty of times and always breaks well.
Princess tries to hammer Gold in the first Breeders’ Cup race on turf Saturday – let’s get it on.
