With probably the most grade 1 wins of any horse in 2021, St. George Steady’s homebred Letruska enters the $2 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) Nov. 6 at Del Mar able to state her case for Horse of the 12 months.
To press that subject because the 8-5 favourite from put up 6 in a area of 11, she might want to dispatch the final two winners of the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1), Malathaat and Shedaresthedevil , along with grade 1 winners Clairiere and Dunbar Road , plus top international contenders in Argentinian Blue Stripe and Marche Lorraine from Japan.
Despite the race’s long history of producing champions and Hall of Famers, only two Breeders’ Cup Distaff winners have gone on to receive Eclipse Awards for both champion older female (or champion older dirt female) and Horse of the Year. Azeri was the last in 2002, capping off a year with five grade 1 triumphs. Lady’s Secret was first to manage the feat in 1986, making the Distaff her eighth grade 1 of the season.
Letruska’s four grade 1 scores of 2021 have come at four different tracks and against the best American mares. No result could be more impressive than out-gaming champion and dual Distaff winner Monomoy Girl at her best in the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) at Oaklawn Park, but it surely was solely April, so Letruska toured the nation accumulating extra graded stakes victories, confirming her greatness whereas biding time till the Breeders’ Cup.
As she cruised gate to wire via the Ogden Phipps (G1) at Belmont Park, the Fleur de Lis (G2) at Churchill Downs, the Private Ensign Stakes Offered by Lia Infiniti (G1) at Saratoga Race Course, and the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes (G1) at Keeneland, the primary query grew to become whether or not she may face males within the $6 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Traditional (G1).
“I feel for some a part of the yr all of this was on our minds,” coach Fausto Gutierrez mentioned. “When she wins and wins, you dream and dream. However proper now, in my view, the right and solely determination on this second is that she affirm this nice yr that she had.”
Gutierrez conceded that the choice to finish her season towards females, most of whom she has crushed beforehand, was calculated with Horse of the 12 months honors in thoughts. Though a win within the Traditional may have made the lone gold-plated Eclipse Award trophy a cinch, the trail of least resistance is to bury the Distaff area and hope that no apparent standout emerges among the many high male filth horses.
Knicks Go , Essential Quality , and Medina Spirit each have two grade 1 victories on the year, but the former has bullied a lackluster handicap division while the sophomores each would need the Classic to solidify their rèsumè. Medina Spirit’s status in one of those grade 1s, the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), is still up in the air as Kentucky stewards have yet to conduct a hearing after the colt tested positive for betamethasone. Classic contender Hot Rod Charlie crossed the finish line first in two grade 1 races this year, but was disqualified from one for interference.
“If you check what she’s done, I think it’s very difficult to ask more,” Gutierrez said of Letruska. “She started in the month of January and now we are at November. She traveled around to the strongest races, different tracks, and she won each one.”
None of this is meant to imply that the Distaff is an easy assignment for Letruska or any other top mare. Past runnings are littered with accomplished older females who had a storybook ending to their racing career ruined by one of the 11 3-year-old fillies that have won about 30% of the 37 previous runnings.
Just one such sophomore, Malathaat hopes to join Monomoy Girl (2018), Untapable (2014), and Ashado (2004) as Kentucky Oaks heroines that won the Distaff in the same year. Shadwell Stable’s superstar is only a head loss in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) away from being undefeated. As one might expect from the result of a real-life-fantasy mating between two-time Horse of the Year Curlin and grade 1 winner Dreaming of Julia , Malathaat’s entire life has been managed with the most prestigious races in mind. She hasn’t raced since winning the Alabama Stakes (G1) in August, the same spacing trainer Todd Pletcher used to win his last Distaff with Stopchargingmaria in 2015.
“I think the time in between races has done her well,” Pletcher said after her most recent work at Belmont. “She’s put on some weight and she seems very fit and happy.”
Malathaat’s success this year has meant even more to the Shadwell team in light of Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s passing in March. The deputy ruler of Dubai and owner of Shadwell requested a 10-day mourning period during which none of his horses would race. Pletcher honored the moratorium by withdrawing Malathaat from consideration for the Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2), and instead waited for the Central Bank Ashland Stakes (G1), resulting in a top-level win the following weekend.
A second Kentucky Oaks winner is aiming to complete a different but no less rare Oaks-Distaff double. Shedaresthedevil, who took the Oaks delayed by COVID-19 in September 2020, wrapped her 3-year-old season before the Distaff but is primed to give it a run at 4. This fall she’s on top of her game for trainer Brad Cox and is coming off consecutive graded stakes wins, including the Aug. 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1), which confirmed an affinity for the Del Mar surface.
“The idea was to get her to break alertly, then get a good spot,” jockey Florent Geroux said. “That’s exactly what happened. She ran her race, and she’s very good when she does. I’d have to say she’s up there with the best mares I’ve ever ridden.”
Geroux won 10 graded stakes on Monomoy Girl for Cox.
Owned by Flurry Racing Stables, Qatar Racing, and Big Aut Farms, the Daredevil filly will be sold at The November Sale, Fasig-Tipton’s marquee breeding stock sale in Lexington, the week after the Breeders’ Cup with the expectation that she will be retired.
Chad Brown, whose 15 Breeders’ Cup wins trail only D. Wayne Lukas (20) and Bob Baffert (17), has a pair of classy 5-year-old mares that fit the Distaff for two of his most iconic owners, but they have already proven a notch below Letruska if everyone shows up with their best. Brown can boast victories in eight different Breeders’ Cup events, but the Distaff is not one of them.
Peter Brant’s Dunbar Road closed for third in this race last year at a big price, going off at 25-1. She hasn’t won since the July 2020 Delaware Handicap (G2) but consistently puts in her run against the best of the division. If the speedier types like Shedaresthedevil and the Bill Mott-trained Horologist try to go with Letruska early on, one would expect to see Dunbar Road passing most of them for a piece.
Will Farish’s homebred Royal Flag is coming off an easy win in the Oct. 10 Beldame Stakes (G2) over Horologist, who won the same race last year, her most recent graded victory. Royal Flag, a 5-year-old daughter of Candy Ride , has put together consecutive big efforts, also including a third in the Personal Ensign at Saratoga, just a half-length behind Letruska. Horologist, a 5-year-old daughter of Gemologist , is campaigned by There’s A Chance Stable, Medallion Racing, Abbondanza Racing, Parkland Thoroughbreds, Paradise Farms, and David Staudacher. She has won two times at the listed level this season but faces a steep task here.
Baffert, the only West Coast-based trainer represented, is seeking his first win in the Distaff with the top two finishers out of the local prep race, the Oct. 3 Zenyatta Stakes (G2). Baoma Corporation’s 3-year-old Into Mischief filly Private Mission is undefeated this year while climbing the ladder and stretching out from a six-furlong allowance at Santa Anita Park to the one-mile Torrey Pines (G3) at Del Mar to the 1 1/16-mile Zenyatta.
Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier, and Derrick Smith’s As Time Goes By , by Triple Crown hero American Pharoah out of multiple grade 1 winner Take Charge Lady , still might be California’s top female on the basis of her wins earlier this year in the Santa Maria Stakes (G2) and Santa Margarita Stakes (G2). The second half of the year has been a head-scratcher, though, with unplaced finishes in the Clement Hirsch and Personal Ensign before ending up second-best to her younger stablemate in the Zenyatta.
Clairiere is another regally bred sophomore, by Curlin out of multiple grade 1 winner Cavorting . The Stonestreet Stables homebred got her grade 1 for trainer Steve Asmussen in the Cotillion (G1) at Parx Racing final month.
Pozo de Luna’s Blue Stripe, whose half sister Blue Prize won this race in 2019, will make her first start outside of her native Argentina. She earned a fees-paid berth to the Distaff by way of the Gran Premio Criadores (G1) in May and went straight to California to acclimate. She has trained steadily for Marcelo Polanco without racing since.
Marche Lorraine traveled from her native Japan off an August win in a rich 10-furlong, right-handed stakes race, the Breeders’ Gold Cup. The Orfevre mare is the first Japanese-bred to run in the Distaff, and a victory from her would add another layer of history to the already esteemed race.
