A year after Sharing posted a 13-1 upset of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, trainer Graham Motion comes into the 2020 renewal at Keeneland aiming to find that magic again with two runners converging from different paths.
Motion is guaranteed to have Grade 1-placed stakes winner Alda in the field on Friday, but he'll need a scratch to bring multiple stakes-placed Invincible Gal into the gate from the also eligible list. If Invincible Gal makes it into the field, it will mark the first time Motion will send two starters in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.
Sharing flew under the radar with bettors during last year's race, and Motion's two runners figure to do the same this time around. While there is some crossover in their paths to the Breeders' Cup, Motion was slow to draw too many parallels between Sharing – who has developed into one of his barn's biggest stars – and his two contenders this year, given what he's seen from the two younger fillies so far.
“We always felt Sharing was exceptional,” Motion said. “She really hadn't done anything wrong coming into the Breeders' Cup, having won her prep race. Neither one of these fillies won their prep races, so that makes it a little tougher, but I certainly felt that these two fillies were two of the best that we had. You can often be wrong with 2-year-olds, but these fillies have answered every question, and they've kind of brought us here.
“On a talent level, are they as good as Sharing? It's a little hard for me to say, because she was exceptional and she won the Breeders' Cup, so these two have got to step up on Friday, but I feel good about them, and they both deserve a shot in there,” the trainer continued. “Both of them have different running styles, too, which I think hopefully somewhat complements each other.”
Alda, a daughter of Munnings with a nail-biting closing style, is the more heralded of Motion's two Juvenile Fillies Turf contenders.
She enters Friday's tilt off a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Natalma Stakes at Woodbine, where she had Lady Speightspeare in her crosshairs, but she was unable to finish the job and ended up 3/4 lengths behind the winner. Prior to that start, Alda won the Catch A Glimpse Stakes at Woodbine by a nose.
Racing as a homebred for Wertheimer et Frere, Alda reunites on Friday with jockey John Velazquez, who rode the filly in her first two starts at Belmont Park this summer.
“She was one of our earliest 2-year-old runners,” Motion said. “She started at Belmont, and the first time she ran, Johnny just got beat on her (third by 1 1/4 lengths). She came back and won pretty nicely.
“We wanted to get her to one of the big Breeders' Cup preps, and I thought the best way to do that was in the Natalma,” Motion continued. “She ran huge in the prep race (the Catch A Glimpse), and I think she might have regressed a little bit four weeks later in the Natalma, but she's had plenty of time to get over that, and she's done very well since.”
Alda jogged a mile and a half over Keeneland's synthetic training track on Wednesday. Both of Motion's Juvenile Fillies Turf contenders have been breezing regularly over the all-weather track at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, but the trainer said the race conditions will be quite different for Alda at Keeneland on Friday, compared to what she'd gotten accustomed to at Woodbine.
“They're very different,” Motion said. “Woodbine is much more European-style, [Keeneland] is much tighter. She's a filly that's going to benefit from pace, and I think there's going to be a lot of pace in the race.”
If she draws in, part of that pace factor could come from Invincible Gal, who finished second by a half-length in the Sorority Stakes at Monmouth Park, then lost a stretch duel in the Selima Stakes over a yielding turf course at Pimlico to run second by 2 1/4 lengths in her most recent effort.
Invincible Gal, a British-born daughter of Invincible Spirit, races for Mike Ryan, Jeff Drown, and Team Hanley. Though she doesn't have the wins on her record that Sharing did at this point in the season, Motion said Invincible Gal's “Pimlico by way of Saratoga” route to the Breeders' Cup did mirror last year's winner.
“With Invincible Gal, we need a little bit of luck to get in, but we took the Sharing route by running at Pimlico, and she ran on extremely soft ground that day, the likes of which we really don't run on in this country,” Motion said.
Invincible Gal also stretched her legs at a mile and a half on Wednesday morning, but she did so over the dirt of Keeneland's main track.
With 41 prior Breeders' Cup starters to his name heading into this year's event, Motion is familiar with the waiting game that comes with this part of the week. Save for a bit of last-minute fortune to get Invincible Gal off the bench, the trainer knows what cards he has in his hand. All that's left to do is to play them.
“I wouldn't change anything about their preparation,” he said, “Two-year-olds in general, it's always tricky, because to get them to these races, you kind of have to play your cards right after they break their maiden. Things have really fallen into place with these two.”
The post ‘These Fillies Have Answered Every Question’: Motion Sends Two In Search Of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf Encore appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
