Breeders' Cup Juvenile

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." Erich Brehm is quoting Mike Tyson. He knows how it might look, from the outside: this charmed, clockwork progress from one fairytale to the next. Texas Red (Afleet Alex) cost just $17,000 as a yearling and--racing for Brehm, trainer Keith Desormeaux and a bunch of pals--won the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile of 2014 by 6 1/2 lengths. Upon his retirement to stud, Brehm bought Texas Red a mare for $21,000. The resulting foal, My Girl Red, pulverized her opponents...

Not his time yet, surely. Can't be. A son of two-turn titan Giant's Causeway; a half-brother to late-blooming Liam's Map. Yet there it is, in black and white: three starters, two winners. Hopeful Princess hurtling just 4 1/2 furlongs at Churchill last week; and Swaggy George at Gulfstream the next day, circling the field into the stretch and sprinting four lengths clear. So while these remain the very earliest of days, Not This Time could not have made a more auspicious start to his stud career. On the one hand,...

In a Classic season blighted by the coronavirus pandemic, Oaklawn rounds out its winter meet with not one but two renewals of the GI Arkansas Derby. Facing a tough group of contenders in Saturday's second division of the Classic prep, including undefeated Nadal (Blame), winner of the GII San Vicente S. and GII Rebel S., and GII Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby hero King Guillermo (Uncle Mo), defending juvenile champion Storm the Court (Court Vision) will try to recover some of the sparkle from his 2-year-old season. This year, he...

Last year's champion juvenile colt Storm the Court (Court Vision) is on target for the May 2 GI Arkansas Derby following a five-furlong work in 1:13.60 (3/3) at Santa Anita Monday, trainer Peter Eurton confirmed. Eurton also plans to enter Shooters Shoot (Competitive Edge), winner of a one-mile allowance at Oaklawn Apr. 11, for the nine-furlong race. "Very pleased with his work," Eurton said of Storm the Court. "Very pleased with Shooters Shoot. I know it's going to be tough on both ends with Bob [Baffert]'s two horses, but we're...

Call it seizing the moment. Carl McEntee's very first Saratoga consignment, just a couple of weeks after hanging out a shiny new Ballysax board at the July Sale in Lexington. A consignment, admittedly, comprising of a single Tiznow colt. "Obviously everyone wants to take a yearling to Saratoga," McEntee says. "And it's very simple to say, 'Let's take this Tapit up there, or this War Front, this Pharoah.' Great, if you have those horses. At that stage, in a fledgling company that'd been going six months, I didn't have clientele...

In the fall of 2016, trainer Peter Eurton saddled a big longshot in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita who rode a game upset to an improbable divisional championship. Three years later, he did the same thing, this time with an unheralded colt in the Juvenile, whose shocking and resolute victory propelled him to an unforeseeable Eclipse Award of his own. Eurton hopes the comparisons end there, however, as his Storm the Court (Court Vision) prepares to get his sophomore season underway while adding the weight of...

Mr. Money has proven more or less unbeatable since a breakout romp in the GIII Pat Day Mile on GI Kentucky Derby Day May 4, and the progressive colt strung together his fourth consecutive win Saturday while becoming a millionaire. Breaking well from a high draw, the heavy favorite locked on to Plus Que Parfait early and traveled under stout restraint through opening splits of :24.42 and :49.10. He poked a head in front turning for home, and was clearly going much better than his rivals as he hit the...

For several weeks, astute racing fans had tabbed Saturday's GI Longines Test S. as one of the potential highlights of the Saratoga meeting. Often times, the bark is bigger than the bite, but this particular renewal lived up to the considerable hype, as Covfefe (Into Mischief) and GI Kentucky Oaks winner Serengeti Empress (Alternation) hooked up early on and never let the other out of their sights. At the conclusion of 71 seconds and change, Covfefe won the battle and the war, decisioning a very game Serengeti Empress by a hard-fought...