Breeders' Cup notes: Friday updates on Classic & Distaff horses
This was the reported activity on Friday for the horses entered in Saturday’s $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Arthur’s Ride
Trainer: Bill Mott
Jockey: Junior Alvarado
Set: 5:30 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped 1 1/4 miles under exercise rider Damian Hinds
Planned activity: Will walk shedrow under tack Saturday morning.
Mott: “He doesn’t need the lead. Sometimes, he needs a target. Let’s put it this way: I think he can be equally as good either way. Running in the (Sept. 1) Jockey Club Gold Cup (fifth-place finish after winning the Whitney) was what I wanted to do. I wanted to have enough time between the Jockey Club and this race. I could have run in the Woodward (Sept. 28 at Aqueduct) but then I would have only had four weeks. We ran in the Jockey Club because we were at Saratoga, and I love running at Saratoga. That was the race I wanted to run it. We had the Jockey Club in mind before the Whitney.”
Trainer: Aidan O’Brien
Jockey: Ryan Moore
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Easy jog and gallop around Del Mar’s dirt track in company with Luxembourg, Henri Matisse, Wingspan and Donnacha O’Brien-trained Porta Fortuna.
Derma Sotogake
Trainer: Hidetaka Otonashi
Jockey: Christophe Lemaire
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: He did a light work on the main track.
Fierceness
Trainer: Todd Pletcher
Jockey: John Velazquez
Morning activity: Galloped approximately a mile.
Planned activity: Scheduled to be hand walked.
Pletcher, on his key to success: “An alert beginning. Just get into the first turn in a good position.”
Forever Young
Trainer: Yoshito Yahagi
Jockey: Ryusei Sakai
Set: 5:30 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: He did an easy exercise on the main track.
Yahagi: “All went as we planned. Nothing worries me.”
Highland Falls
Trainer: Brad Cox
Jockey: Luis Saez
Morning activity: Galloped with Katie Tolbert.
Planned activity: Will walk.
Mixto
Trainer: Doug O’Neill
Jockey: Kyle Frey
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Jogged one mile with Tony Romero up.
Planned activity: Will not go to the track Saturday morning.
O'Neill: “I would like to see him have a good clean break and get a similar trip to what he had when he won the Pacific Classic here.”
Newgate
Trainer: Bob Baffert
Jockey: Frankie Dettori
Set: 5:30 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped 1 1/4 miles under exercise rider Humberto Gomez.
Planned activity: Will walk the shedrow Saturday morning.
Baffert: “He doesn’t like being on the inside, but he doesn’t have to worry about that because he is pretty far outside (13 post). I talked to Frankie about it. He will put him in a spot where he feels comfortable, and that is all you can do.”
Next
Trainer: Doug Cowans
Jockey: Luan Machado
Morning activity: Galloped.
Planned activity: Will walk.
Doug Cowans, on jockey Luan Machado and how he has been an integral part of the team: “The rider situation started early on. When we made the decision that Next was going to go to Delaware (for the 2022 Cape Henlopen Stakes) and Luan was going to ride the horse, he started breezing the horse in the morning. One of the things that we talked about early on was trying to get the horse to relax a little bit, because we thought he’d be on the lead in most of those races, and we thought he’d go right to the lead. We wanted to make sure we kind of taught him to settle a little bit because we felt like he had enough stamina. And once he started riding the horse, he really got along well with him, and rest is history.”
Pyrenees
Trainer: Cherie DeVaux
Jockey: Brian Hernandez Jr.
Morning activity: Galloped in usual routine.
Planned activity: Walk the shedrow.
Enrique Miranda, exercise rider and assistant to DeVaux: “He’ll walk tomorrow and he’s done all the hard work now, so he’s ready to go. He’ll walk in the morning, settle, have some breakfast, and wait for showtime.”
Rattle N Roll
Trainer: Kenny McPeek
Jockey: Jose Ortiz
Set: 5:45 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped 1 1/2 miles under exercise rider Danny Ramsey.
Planned activity: TBA.
Ramsey: “We don’t know what we are going to do with him if he doesn’t get in. We would probably gallop him in the (Saturday) morning.”
Senor Buscador
Trainer: Todd Fincher
Jockey: Joel Rosario
Set: 6:20 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Jogged under Dennis Means.
Planned activity: Jog in the morning.
Fincher: “I’d love to see him get a clean trip with lots of pace in front of him.” — Todd Fincher
Sierra Leone
Trainer: Chad Brown
Jockey: Flavien Prat
Morning activity: Galloped an easy circuit of the Del Mar dirt.
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Planned activity: Racing on Saturday.
Brown: “All good.”
Tapit Trice
Trainer: Todd Pletcher
Jockey: Irad Ortiz Jr.
Morning activity: Galloped approximately one mile.
Planned activity: Scheduled to be hand walked.
Pletcher, on his key to success: “An alert beginning. Just get into the first turn in a good position. He won’t be as speedy as Fierceness but hopefully is able to tuck over and get into a good stalking position and hopefully save a little ground in the first turn.”
Ushba Tesoro
Trainer: Noburu Takagi
Jockey: Yuga Kawada
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: He did a light work on the main track.
Takagi: “We trained him as we do in Japan. I believe he is in good form.”
Distaff
This was the reported activity on Friday for the horses entered in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Alice Verite
Trainer: Kazuya Nakatake
Jockey: Kyle Frey
Set: 5:45 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: She did a light exercise on the main track.
Nakatake: “I am excited because she moves so well on the dirt track.”
Awesome Result
Trainer: Yasutoshi Ikee
Jockey: Yutaka Take
Set: 6 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: She had a light work on the main track.
Ikee: “She occasionally misses the jump from the stall so outside draw is ideal. She handles wet track well, but it is unlikely to get that much of rain.”
Candied
Trainer: Todd Pletcher
Jockey: Irad Ortiz Jr.
Morning activity: Galloped approximately one mile.
Planned activity: Scheduled to be hand walked.
Pletcher: What is a key to success for her?: “Springing from the rail, hopefully she gets away cleanly and can get into a position where she can have some options to stay inside or put her out in the clear. I would imagine she would be in a stalking-type position.”
Che Evasora
Trainer: Phil D’Amato
Jockey: Tiago Pereira
Set: 5:20 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped one mile on main track.
Planned activity: May go to the track Saturday morning.
D'Amato: “I hope she gets a clean break and then just sits back and closes with one big run.”
Honor D Lady
Trainer: Saffie Joseph Jr.
Jockey: Irad Ortiz Jr.
Morning activity: Tack walked for about an hour.
Planned activity: Walk again tomorrow.
Peter Leiva, assistant to Saffie Joseph Jr.: “All is good. We’ll do the same thing tomorrow. All the horses are doing perfect.”
Raging Sea
Trainer: Chad Brown
Jockey: Flavien Prat
Set: 5:30 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped an easy circuit of the Del Mar dirt.
Planned activity: Racing on Saturday.
Brown: “All good.”
Sugar Fish
Trainer: Jeff Mullins
Jockey: Tyler Baze
Set: 4:45 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped 1 1/2 miles under Amy Mullins.
Planned activity: Go to the track Saturday morning.
Mullins: “The ideal scenario for her will be more speed in the race.”
Thorpedo Anna
Trainer: Kenny McPeek
Jockey: Brian Hernandez Jr.
Set: 5 a.m. PDT
Morning activity: Galloped 1 1/2 miles under exercise rider Danny Ramsey.
Planned activity: Will walk the shedrow Saturday morning.
Hernandez, on what it’s like riding Thorpedo Anna: “It’s hard to describe. She is so dominant and so powerful in what she does. She just has this presence about her where she seems to know how good she is and she wants to go out there and show it. She is almost like a warrior princess. She gets cranked up in the post parade and, once the gates open, she leaves there and gets in her natural rhythm and she’ll jump when I need her to. We are going into this worrying more about how our filly is doing than worry about who we are facing.”