What to watch for: First look at Belmont's Breeders' Cup prep fields

By Ryan Dickey
Photo: Eclipse Sportswire

Belmont Park hosted what’s traditionally known as “Super Saturday” last weekend -- but another major slew of Breeders’ Cup preps are on tap led by the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (G1).
Below, check out probables provided for the New York Racing Association, with headliner Sistercharlie also set to run in Sunday’s Flower Bowl (G1) on her way to a defense of the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.
Grade 1, $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic

While this major prep for the Breeders’ Cup Turf may look like a two horse race between Arklow and Channel Maker, Channel Cat may have a say.

Channel Maker holds the home turf advantage, as he’s won multiple graded stakes on the Belmont turf, including winning last year’s edition of this race. However, he has finished fourth in four of his last five races.
Arklow hasn’t won since September of last year but has hit the board in four straight races, including a second last out in the Kentucky Downs Turf Cup (G3).

Channel Cat, meanwhile, has sandwiched two third-place finishes around his Grade 2 Bowling Green victory at Saratoga but has never finished better than third at Belmont. 


 
Grade 1, $500,000 Champagne Stakes


Saratoga Special (G2) winner Green Light Go, who scratched from the Hopeful Stakes (G1) to await this spot, leads the probables for a race that has been won by some of the greatest horses to ever run in America.
Seattle Slew, Alydar and Spectacular Bid won the 1976, 1977 and 1978 editions of the Champagne, which keeps 2-year-olds around one turn. Forty Niner and Easy Goer won in 1987 and 1988.
Recent winners include Firenze Fire, Practical Joke, Shanghai Bobby, Union Rags and Uncle Mo, and Code of Honor ran second in it last season.
This time, 2-for-2 Green Light Go will be up against, among others, Grade 1-place Gozilla, who tired over a sloppy track in the Hopeful, and Todd Pletcher-trained debut winner Alpha Sixty Six looking to move on to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Grade 2, $400,000 Hill Prince

Digital Age, A Thread of Blue and English Bee head the list of probables for this race for 3-year-olds on turf.

Chad Brown saddles Digital Age, who won the Grade 2 American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs and went on to participate in the Turf Trinity series of lucrative races over the summer. Brown won the Hill Prince in 2015 with Takeover Target and in 2016 with Camelot Kitten.
Kiaran McLaughlin won the Hill Prince in 2010 with Krypton. This year, he’s sending postward the Saratoga Derby winner A Thread of Blue.
Graham Motion trains Virginia Derby (G3) winner English Bee. He won the Hill Prince in 2014 with Ring Weekend.
Newer to turf is Bourbon War, who was second last time in the Better Talk Now in his debut on the green after running in two-thirds on the Triple Crown series on dirt.
Grade 3, $150,000 Matron Stakes

Going six furlongs on the turf for 2-year-old fillies, this race is part of the Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” Challenge Series for the Juvenile Turf Sprint division.

It could come down to which emerging start 2-year-old trainer Wesley Ward elects to enter. 

Kimari (won the Bolton Landing at Saratoga) and Karak (won the Tyro Stakes at Monmouth Park) are both possible, with Kimari, who was also a narrow second earlier this season at Royal Ascot, seemingly more likely to go in Sunday’s Indian Summer at Keeneland.
Ward won the Matron in 2017 with Happy Like a Fool.

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