Balantina leads long shots in Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf
Ireland-based and U.S.-owned Balantina showed a race-changing turn of foot in mid-stretch, finding a seam along the rail and rallying to a 20-1 upset Friday in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, a two-turn mile at Del Mar.
Great Britain champion rider Oisín Murphy took the Ten Sovereigns filly from the middle of the pack of 12 2-year-old fillies at the top of the stretch to his second Breeders’ Cup win. The first came with 49-1 Japan long shot Marche Lorraine in the 2021 Distaff at Del Mar.
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Donnacha O’Brien, 27, became the third member of his family to train a Breeders’ Cup winner. He joined his brother Joseph and patriarch Aidan, who shares the record with 20 victories in the championships.
Balantina broke slowly from post 10 and settled back as Switch in Love took the field through early fractions of 22.33 and 45.96. Celebrity Warrior took over in the second turn through three-quarters of a mile in 1:11.01. After Balantina made her rail move, she took over through seven furlongs in 1:23.18 before flashing home a 1 1/4-length winner at 1:35.07 on the firm turf.
Balantina paid a stakes-record $43.20 to win. Pacific Mission, who was 14-1 out of post 12, finished second. Ground Support, who started at 24-1 from post 11, was third. Imaginationthelady at 6-1 wound up fourth, ahead of 7-2 favorite Ultimate Love. The $2 exacta paid $340.80, the $1 trifecta $2,479.90 and $1 superfecta $19,971.50.
Owned by Medallion Racing, Parkland Thoroughbreds, Reeves Thoroughbred and Lissa Ann McNulty, Balantina was bred in Ireland and sold for $108,244 at last year’s Arqana Deauville yearling sale in France.
The original plot of the race was undone Friday morning when 6-5 morning-line favorite Precise was scratched.
“She gave eight or 10 coughs (Friday) morning, so we got her scoped, and she had phlegm in her throat,” trainer Aidan O’Brien told reporters. “We sent her bloods to the lab for testing, and she’s got an infection. It seems like she has picked up a little bug or something, and her temperature has started to rise.”
Precise is a Coolmore-owned Starspangledbanner filly who is on a four-race winning streak. She finished first last out Oct. 10 in the Fillies’ Mile (G1) at Newmarket in England.
"This is very special," Donnacha O'Brien said. "It was fantastic. Precise is a champion filly so when she was scratched it made it a little bit easier for us, but it's incredible. Oisín was majestic on her. She was slow away but when he got her on the rail he had the luck and had enough filly beneath to go and win the race so it’s brilliant."
This was the 18th running of the Juvenile Fillies Turf. U.S.-based horses won 13 of the first 17.