As Time Goes By/Private Mission – Private Mission, a winner of both career two-turn stakes starts, and As Time Goes By, who captured the Santa Anita's winter-spring meeting's distaff title, galloped for trainer Bob Baffert this morning while readying to compete in Saturday's $2 million Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1). As Time Goes By, who was on the track immediately after the renovation break, galloped twice around the oval, while Private Mission emerged from the barn with the stable's next set of horses to gallop a mile.
Blue Stripe (ARG) – Pozo de Luna's Blue Stripe (ARG) visited the paddock and then jogged 2 ½ times around the main track under exercise rider Alex Jimenez.
Blue Stripe will represent the fifth Breeders' Cup starter for trainer Marcelo Polanco and first since 2005 when Island Fashion finished 10th in her second try in the Distaff.
“It is exciting to be back (in the Breeders' Cup),” Polanco said. “The filly is doing real good. However, this is all about timing. Your horse has to be 100 percent. You can have the best horse, but if something goes wrong …”
Clairiere – Stonestreet Stable's Cotillion (G1) winner Clairiere had an easy gallop Thursday as she prepares to give her trainer Steve Asmussen his second Breeders' Cup Distaff victory with a 3-year-old filly. He also won the race in 2014 with Untapable, who secured champion sophomore filly honors after winning the Distaff and Kentucky Oaks.
Dunbar Road/Royal Flag – Both of trainer Chad Brown's Distaff contenders, W. S. Farish's Royal Flag and Peter Brant's Dunbar Road, galloped easy circuits of the Del Mar main track Thursday morning.
Dunbar Road, who was Brown's final of 12 gallopers on the morning, was out just past 9 o'clock, while Royal Flag went out about 20 minutes prior.
Grade 1 winner Dunbar Road will make her final start in the Distaff, while G2 winner Royal Flag's plans have not been decided, per Brown. Both are five years of age.
Horologist – Bill Mott reported that his Distaff contender Horologist galloped about a mile and a quarter of the Del Mar main track Thursday morning. Owned by There's a Chance Stable, Medallion Racing, Abbondanza Racing, Parkland Thoroughbreds, Paradise Farms and David Staudacher, the Grade 2 winner is a 30-1 longshot in the Distaff.
“She's good,” Mott said.
Letruska – St. George Stable's 8-5 morning line favorite for the Distaff Letruska, continued her preparation for the $2 million race Thursday with a 1 ½-mile gallop under Roger Horgan at Del Mar.
Trainer Fausto Gutierrez, 54, discovered racing as small child in Spain, became a fan while growing up in Mexico, and moved toward a training career while in college. He spent about a decade working as a turf writer at a Mexico City newspaper before turning to training on full-time basis.
Gutierrez has developed the Kentucky-bred Letruska for St. George Stable LLC, owned by the Mexican billionaire German Larrea Mota-Velasco. She has won six of seven starts in 2021, four of them Grade 1, and is the leading contender to win the Eclipse Award as the older female dirt horse.
Gutierrez majored in communications in college and thought it would lead to a job in television or advertising. As a college freshman, one of his professors noticed that he had a sales catalogue with him. The professor, who had a horse in the sale, invited him to visit the backstretch with him and introduced him to a trainer. That meeting led to the start of his training career and a few years later into journalism
“I had a good friend who liked (soccer) and he started to work for the Periodico Reforma. It is one of the most important in Mexico,” he said. “When the newspaper started, he called me. We are very good friends from the university, we finished together, and he told me 'I'm looking for a person to write about the horses.' A special (contributor), or something like that. I thought, 'why not?'
Gutierrez balanced the unusual combination of training and journalism for several years and often had to write about his own horses. He spent 1998 and 1999 training horses in Texas for Mexican owners while the track in Mexico City was closed. Gutierrez's association with Larrea Mota-Velasco began in 2001 when the CEO of Mexico's largest mining company asked him to represent him at the Keeneland sales following the 9/11 attacks.
The owner-trainer partnership grew into a massive, powerful stable and Gutierrez was the leading trainer at the country's only track for 10 consecutive years. He twice won Mexico's Triple Crown.
Gutierrez found international success and U.S. exposure when the Clasico del Caribe series was relocated to Gulfstream Park in 2017. His victories included Jaguaryu (MEX) in the 2017 Lady Caribbean; Jala Jala (MEX) in the 2017 Caribbean Classic and 2018 Confraternity Caribbean Cup; Kukulkan (MEX) in the 2018 Caribbean Classic and 2019 Copa Confraternidad del Caribe and Letruska in the 2019 Copa Invitacional del Caribe, facing older males as a 3-year-old filly.
Larrea Mota-Velasco decided that he wanted a division in the U.S. and Gutierrez brought Letruska and some other runners to Florida early in 2020. Letruska is the leader of his current 15-horse stable and his first Breeders' Cup runner. He hopes to stay in the U.S. and keep building a bigger, but not too large, stable.
“Any trainer to continue to be competitive needs to have material, to have horses,” he said. “I want to have an operation that I can control very closely. Maybe I can have 30 to 40 horses that I can pay attention to. In Mexico before I trained nearly 200 horses at the same time. It's different. At this point, I prefer to be closer to the horses and make more decisions.”
Malathaat – In her first start since a victory in the Alabama on Aug. 28 at Saratoga, Malathaat could become the 12th 3-year-old filly to win the $2 million Distaff – being run for the 38th time – and the fourth Kentucky Oaks winner to complete the double with the Distaff in the same year.
Monomoy Girl (2018), Untapable (2014) and Ashado (2004) are the only fillies to win both races in the same season. All three won the Eclipse Award as the division champion.
Royal Delta (2011) is the only Alabama winner to double in the Distaff as a 3-year-old, which led to a division title.
Malathaat, owned by Shadwell Stable and trained by Todd Pletcher, has won six of her seven career starts. She will face older horses for the first time in an eagerly anticipated showdown with speedy Letruska, who has a five-race winning streak.
“We would benefit from a good, honest pace,” Pletcher said. “Letruska is a forwardly placed filly, although I think she's also had success when she's not on the lead, but she's usually going to be close. Hopefully we get a good, honest pace and a clean trip and we'll see. It's always a challenge running against older mares for the first time, but she's put together a pretty impressive resume herself. We're excited about it.”
Malathaat's lone loss, by a head to Maracuja, came at Saratoga Race Course in the Coaching Club American Oaks. Marcuja, who was 14-1, pressed the 1-5 Malathaat early, retreated for a while under jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. while Clariere presented the challenge, and rallied in the stretch.
“It was a tricky race,” Pletcher said. “There was a four-horse field. She drew the rail. There was no obvious speed on paper. And then they kind of ran relays at her. Santana made what turned out to be a smart decision and one that most of the time guys go to, to let their horse fall back in the middle part of the race and then come on again. It was one of those things that just nothing, nothing really went the way we wanted it to. She still ran courageously off the layoff and just couldn't get her head down on the wire, but certainly made amends in the Alabama.”
Thursday morning Malathaat galloped 1 ¼ miles.
Pletcher has a 2-1-4 record with 20 starters in the Distaff. His winners were Ashado (2004) and Stopchargingmaria (2015). Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez has the mount. Velazquez has a 2-0-3 record in 18 starts in the Distaff. His winners were Ashado (2004) and Forever Unbridled (2017).
Marche Lorraine (JPN) – U. Carrot Farm's Marche Lorraine (JPN) visited the starting gate and paddock Thursday morning and galloped on the main track.
Shedaresthedevil – Flurry Racing Stable, Qatar Racing Limited and Big Aut Farm's Shedaresthedevil had an easy gallop under Edvin Vargas and visited the starting gate Thursday morning in her second to last day of training before the Distaff.
The connections of the Daredevil filly have had the Distaff circled on their calendar since last October when they made the decision to bypass the 2020 edition following a third in the Spinster Stakes at Keeneland.
“We made a plan and it has worked out to T,” co-owner Staton Flurry said. “We mapped out our strategy and we stuck to it, including sending her here for the Clement Hirsch. It's exactly what we did last year as well leading into the Oaks. Once we knew the rescheduled date, we just worked backward. It's a testament to (trainer) Brad's (Cox) and his team with how well it's worked out.”
Shedaresthedevil is scheduled to be sold the Tuesday following the Breeders' Cup at the Fasig- Tipton sale and the Distaff could be her last race.
“In this business, you have to lead with your head and not your heart,” Staton said. “There's a lot of money on the table, so I think we're doing the right thing. But, it will be bittersweet.”
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