Toronto Throws a Party, Louisville Starts the Clock
Circle Saturday and clear your afternoon, because Woodbine is hosting the single best card in North America. Turf Champions Day puts four Grade 1 Breeders' Cup "Win and You're In" races on one program for the first time in track history, all of them over the freshly renovated E.P. Taylor Turf Course. That surface came back from a full rebuild in August, with new drainage, new irrigation and a completely reworked racing profile, and now it gets the spotlight it was built for.
The headliner is the Woodbine Mile, Race 10, worth $1 million Canadian, and it is a heavyweight fight. Notable Speech returns from Newmarket as the defending champion of both this race and the Breeders' Cup Mile, chasing a second Woodbine Mile that would put him alongside Wise Dan as the only repeat winner. Charlie Appleby and William Buick have taken this thing three of the last four years with Modern Games, Master of the Seas and Notable Speech, all three sons of Dubawi. Standing in the way is Deterministic, winner of six straight including four Saratoga Grade 1s, freshly successful cutting back to a flat mile in the Fourstardave for Miguel Clement and Kendrick Carmouche. Do not sleep on Archivist, the Wathnan Racing gelding who won York's Group 3 Strensall and gets Joao Moreira for his first Grade 1 try, or on hometown favorite Gas Me Up, who nosed out the King Edward last time and ran third in this race a year ago.
The E.P. Taylor Stakes at a mile and a quarter drew eight fillies and mares, with Woodbine-based Sultana facing Gimme a Nother, Diamond Rain and Jancis. Diamond Rain lost this race by a head last year and then ran third in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, so she arrives with revenge on the brain. Graham Motion's Gimme a Nother comes in on a three-race roll after taking the Beverly D. at Colonial Downs.
The juveniles fill in the rest. The bet365 Summer Stakes goes as Race 7 at one mile, and the Johnnie Walker Natalma sends eleven fillies a mile on the grass for a ticket to the Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland, with Saratoga maiden winners Embouteillage and Runaway Bride leading the way. Mark Casse owns this race with a record eight wins, so treat his runners accordingly.
Down in Louisville, the calendar resets. The Road to Kentucky Derby 153 officially opens in the $300,000 Iroquois, where Zedan Racing's undefeated Salahudin steps out of post 7 for Bob Baffert and Florent Geroux after a four and a half length demolition of the Ellis Park Juvenile. The Pocahontas an hour earlier gives the Oaks trail its first points, and unbeaten Ellis Park Debutante winner Manuka Honey, an impressive front-running type for Brian Lynch and Luis Saez, is the one to catch.
The best betting race on the card might be the Locust Grove. Nitrogen skipped it because of the Kentucky heat, but Splendora and Immersive still gives you a rematch worth the price of admission. Splendora is the 3-5 morning line favorite off a five and a half length Molly Pitcher score; Immersive, the 2024 juvenile filly champion, returns for Brad Cox off her Fleur de Lis win. Watch the scratch sheet, because Simply Joking is cross entered here and in Florida and is expected to ship south. Baffert also fires Usha and Cash Call in the Open Mind, and Vanderbilt winner Built headlines the Louisville Thoroughbred Society.
Speaking of Florida, Saffie Joseph Jr. goes for a fourth straight Princess Rooney with three of the seven entrants in the seven furlong Breeders' Cup qualifier. Sunday is quieter on the Thoroughbred side, with Woodbine scheduled to keep the lights on for a pair of $100,000 Ontario Sired Stakes for juveniles, the Victorian Queen and the Bull Page, both at six and a half furlongs. If you want something completely different, Los Alamitos (Nite) runs the Grade 2 PCQHRA Breeders Futurity on Sunday, a projected $300,000 for 2-year-old Quarter Horses over 350 yards, and the whole thing is over in about seventeen and a half seconds.
Four Grade 1s, two classic trails opening, and a champion sprinter stretching out. Get the coffee on early.
