Breeders’ Cup: Emphatic looks like best of 3 for Brendan Walsh

Emphatic looks like the kind of horse who should win a Breeders’ Cup. She has the breeding. She has an undefeated record. She just won over the very course and distance where the $2 million Juvenile Fillies will be run Friday.

Trainer Brendan Walsh, who also has Lush Lips and Expensive Queen pre-entered for the Filly & Mare Turf next Saturday at Keeneland, knows better than to count the victory for Emphatic just yet. He has been down this road before with a highly regarded contender only to come away with disappointment.

First to last: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

“Who knows?” he said Friday. “If we get the run of the race, and the way she’s coming in there, I can’t see her being too far away. We can only worry about ourselves. If you take on everybody, and if they show up, they’re going to be dangerous, too. But I just tend to worry about ourselves and let the rest take care of itself.”

The rest start with Miss Monica. She also brings an undefeated record to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Where Emphatic is 3-for-3 carrying 5-2 odds in overseas futures, California-based Miss Monica is 2-for-2 with a 9-4 price that makes her the favorite.

Miss Monica, who won her debut in August and then the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 5, is trained by Bob Baffert. His 21 victories tie him with Aidan O’Brien for the most in the Breeders’ Cup. Walsh, who has had 13 starters in the championships, still seeks his first win.

“We’ve been lucky enough,” Walsh, 53, told Horse Racing Nation in a phone interview Friday while driving home from Keeneland to Louisville, Ky. “We’ve had a few runners the last few years and a few live ones. Unfortunately, we haven’t managed to win one yet. But hopefully it won’t be too long before we can rectify that.”

Maybe it happens with Emphatic on Friday. The Pennsylvania-bred Nyquist filly out of Tiznow mare Convinced, is owned by Gainesway Stable and Andrew Rosen. She brings a 3-for-3 record back to Keeneland. That was where she led at every call Oct. 2 carrying jockey Tyler Gaffalione to victory in the Alcibiades (G1). After stalk-and-score wins July 25 at Colonial Downs and Aug. 29 in the Sorority Stakes at Monmouth Park, the Alcibiades was Emphatic’s first race that she led from gate to wire.

“We didn’t run her with any intention the first couple of races, and the last day, she broke super fast,” Walsh said. “She was out of there almost like a half-length in front of everybody else. We weren’t going to take anything away from her. They kind of left her alone on the lead, and she took advantage of it.”

Emphatic, who will be ridden again by Gaffalione on Friday, succeeded in the Alcibiades despite drawing the rail post in the field of seven 2-year-old fillies.

“She really helped me out the way she broke today,” Gaffalione said minutes after the win last month. “She put herself right where she needed to be. As soon as we got to the backstretch, her ears came up, and she was traveling so well, she gave me a ton of confidence from then on. When I called on her, she responded.”

That does not mean, though, that Emphatic has to live up to her name in an early speed contest with, say, Life Changing and Badittude. They are the Todd Pletcher-trained long shots whose E 8 designation in Quirin Speed Points suggest they may set the early pace in the Juvenile Fillies.

“We wouldn’t take (the lead) away from her, but if somebody wants to roll, she’s quite happy to sit back and stalk the pace as well,” Walsh said. “She’s naturally fast, so I don’t ever see her being too far away from the pace. She doesn’t necessarily have to be in front.”

Walsh was not afraid to say that, on paper, the 1 1/16-mile Juvenile Fillies could come down to Emphatic vs. Miss Monica. On the track, one advantage his filly has is that she has won twice going two turns. Conversely, next week will be Miss Monica’s first race going longer than the seven-furlong Del Mar Futurity, where she won by 6 1/4 lengths.

“I actually ran two fillies in the Debutante at Del Mar this year when Bob’s filly won, and she was very impressive that day,” said Walsh, who saw Panda Listen finish eighth and Fast Amy last of 10 for him. “She still has to go to two turns, and I think that’s a big test. Nobody is better at it than Bob, so I’m sure she will, but 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, they seem to beat each other all the time, especially 2-year-olds and early 3-year-olds.”

Walsh knows all too well how on-paper results do not always translate cleanly to on-track performance. East Avenue looked like he had it all carrying 9-5 odds as the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile favorite in 2024 only to stumble at the start. He finished ninth at Del Mar.

“We were beat as soon as we left the gate,” Walsh said that day. “Just unfortunate.”

Now the native of County Cork, Ireland, hopes to cash in with Emphatic, one of the few Pennsylvania-breds to come through his stable in the 15 years he has trained in the U.S.

“We don’t tend to have too many of them down our way,” Walsh said. “I actually had a pretty good one a few years ago, a grass horse called Saham, when I started training first. He won the (2015 Jefferson Cup, G3) at Churchill. Outside of him, I don’t think I’ve had too many. But I don’t care what bred (Emphatic) is if she can run.”

For the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf next Saturday, 4-year-old Lush Lips is 12-1 overseas, and 5-year-old Expensive Queen is 33-1. Four-year-old Blue Bolt, who brings a six-race winning streak in from England, is the 11-4 favorite for trainer Andrew Balding.

Lush Lips, a Ten Sovereigns filly owned by Dixiana Farms and ridden by Gaffalione, lost to Classic Q by a nose Oct. 3 in the First Lady (G1) at Keeneland. It was her second straight runner-up result coming off a six-month setback.

“Unfortunately she got injured just before the Jenny Wiley (G1) in the spring,” Walsh said. “It wasn’t a major injury, but it just took a little longer than what we initially thought to get her through, so she missed the whole summer. ... I thought her run in the First Lady was very good. I thought she showed acceleration that she’s never shown us before. Not that she’s never shown us acceleration, but she was just really, really, really quick that day. She did get nailed, but I think she’ll jump up again off of that next week.”

Expensive Queen filled the void left by Lush Lips on April 11 when she won the Jenny Wiley at Keeneland. Then she went on a six-month break. Coming back, she ran into traffic with regular rider Luis Sáez in the First Lady, but she still made up 4 1/4 lengths and four places to finish sixth, only 1 3/4 lengths behind Classic Q.

“She just never, ever, ever got a chance to run that day. After the race I couldn’t believe how animated Luis Sáez was,” Walsh said. “I remember Luis saying, ‘Oh, I never had a a chance to run, blah, blah, blah.’ When I came back, and I looked at the race, she never did. She wasn’t beaten very far, so I think she ran a sneaky good race in the First Lady.”

Expensive Queen, a Lope De Vega mare who won her debut in England for trainer Kevin Ryan, is 6: 4-0-0 since she came to America for owner Farfellow Farms. Two of those wins for Walsh came at Keeneland, where she will stretch to 1 3/16 miles next Saturday.

“She likes Keeneland,” he said. “She seems like the distance will really suit her. She’ll go on any kind of ground. I think she’s got a sneaky chance in there.”

Walsh has coveted a Breeders’ Cup victory for almost as long as he can remember.

“When we were younger, and we were back in Ireland years ago, we always watched Breeders’ Cups,” he said. “From an international point of view, that was the race everybody wants to win is the Breeders’ Cup.”