One of the most all-American of the Breeders’ Cup races, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) has produced the most champions in year-end Eclipse Award balloting among Breeders’ Cup races. Nineteen of the 22 winners were subsequently voted year-end champions.
The first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, the second race on the inaugural card in 1984, produced the afternoon’s first bit of controversy. In making a winning move at the top of the stretch, Fran’s Valentine knocked Pirate’s Glow off stride and pushed her into Canadian star Bessarabian. Fran’s Valentine held off Outstandingly to reach the finish line first, but stewards disqualified Fran’s Valentine to tenth for causing interference. After Outstandingly followed with a win in the Hollywood Starlet Stakes (G1), she was voted an Eclipse Award as champion two-year-old filly, a title that would be earned by all but three of the succeeding Juvenile Fillies winners. |
The Juvenile Fillies at Aqueduct in 1985 launched a dominating run by D. Wayne Lukas, who took the first two spots that year with Twilight Ridge and Family Style. Lukas saddled the top three finishers in 1988, with Open Mind the winner. In 1994, he sent out Flanders and Serena’s Song to finish one-two. Flanders pulled up lame after the race and subsequently was retired. Serena’s Song, second by a head, was champion three-year-old filly the following year and retired as North America’s then-leading female earner with $3,283,388. Lukas also won in 1999 with longshot Cash Run and in 2005 with Folklore, the 11th favorite to win the race.
In addition to Open Mind, who was voted champion at two and three, Juvenile Fillies winners who earned two championship titles were Go for Wand and Silverbulletday. Go for Wand took the two-year-old title with a triumph at Gulfstream Park in 1989 and won an Eclipse Award as champion three-year-old filly posthumously after a fatal breakdown in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1). Silverbulletday scored a half-length victory over stablemate Excellent Meeting in the 1998 Juvenile Fillies and won four Grade 1 races the following year to wrap up the three-year-old filly title.
Ashado, second to Halfbridled in 2003, went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) in ‘04 and collect an Eclipse Award as champion three-year-old filly. She was voted champion older female after another stellar campaign that ended with a third-place finish in the Distaff. She subsequently was sold for a record $9-million as broodmare prospect.
Even more than the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1), the Juvenile Fillies in recent years has been noteworthy for the inability of its winners to maintain their form at age three. Storm Flag Flying, a daughter of 1995 Juvenile Fillies winner My Flag and unbeaten in 2002, failed to win at three, although she was a Grade 1 winner at four in ‘04 and finished second to Ashado in the ‘04 Distaff. Halfbridled, also unbeaten at two, failed to win her two starts at three in 2004 and was retired. Sweet Catomine, also an impressive Juvenile Fillies winner and a near-unanimous Eclipse Award champion, won twice at three, including an easy victory in the Santa Anita Oaks (G1), but was retired after running fifth in the Santa Anita Derby (G1).
The Juvenile Fillies also is notable for its number of odds-on winners. Lukas’s three-horse entry was 3-to-5 in 1985, and in ‘88 his five-horse coupling was 7-to-10. Two years later at Belmont Park, LeRoy Jolley-trained Meadow Star went off at 1-to-5 and breezed home by five lengths. Lukas struck again at Churchill in 1994, when Flanders won at 2-to-5 in an entry with Cat Appeal. Silverbulletday, trained by Bob Baffert, won at 4-to-5 in 1998, and Ogden Mills Phipps’s Storm Flag Flying won at 4-to-5 in 2002. The only filly beaten at odds-on was 0.95-to-1 You, who finished fourth in 2001.
Through 2005, only 12 overseas-based fillies have competed in the Juvenile Fillies, with their best finishes a pair of fourths in 1993 and ‘94. Godolphin Racing won in 2001 with Tempera, who was trained in the United States by Eoin Harty. |
