SPORTS

Breeders' Cup Spotlight: $2 million Distaff

Jennie Rees
@CJ_Jennie

BREEDERS’ CUP SPOTLIGHT: Distaff

Sheer Drama capturing Saratoga's Grade I Personal Ensign.

Date: Friday, Oct. 30 at Keeneland.

Purse: $2 million.

Division: Fillies & mares 3-year-olds & up

Distance: 1 1/8 miles

TV: NBC Sports Network

Radio/livestreaming: Horse Racing Radio Network, including 680-AM and 93.9-FM in Louisville and horseracingradio.net.

The favorite: With Beholder, the 2013 Distaff champ who romped against males in the $1 million Pacific Classic, targeting the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Distaff becomes a wide-open race. Wynn Casino Las Vegas lists the 5-year-old mares Sheer Drama and Wedding Toast as the 4-1 co-favorites. Daily Racing Form has Sheer Drama at 3-1 and Wedding Toast at 7-2.

Wedding Toast has won three straight with ease at Belmont Park, including the Grade I Ogden Phipps (over 2014 Distaff winner Untapable) and the Beldame (over the classy 3-year-old Curalina) on an unchallenged lead. However, she’s proven she doesn’t need to be in front. The question is if Wedding Toast will be as effective away from Belmont and New York and not racing around one turn, though she has won around two turns. Her last defeat came in Keeneland’s Grade I Madison in the spring.

Wedding Toast romped to her third straight victory in Belmont's Grade I Beldame.

Wedding Toast won her only meeting with Sheer Drama, in a Belmont stakes two years ago.

Sheer Drama’s stock soared after taking the Grade I Delaware Handicap over Distaff contender Frivolous and Saratoga’s Personal Ensign over eventual Spinster winner Got Lucky and Untapable. She has three wins and four seconds in seven starts this year. But, just one example how competitive the field is, Frivolous beat Sheer Drama to win Churchill Downs' Fleur de Lis.

   One to beat: Untapable, last year's Kentucky Oaks winner and 3-year-old champion as well as the Distaff heroine, appears a step or two off last year’s form. But she ran very well, in spite of being over-eager early, in narrowly losing the Spinster. She could be coming into her best performance of the year. And she’s still the two-time champ.

Other contenders:Frivolous could be this year’s Don’t Tell Sophia, last year’s runner-up who also was based at Keeneland year-round. Fourth in the Spinster, she’s having a career season and offers significant value over her hometown track. I’m A Chatterbox, dominant winner of Parx’s Cotillion, and Curalina head the 3-year-olds.

   Notable: Untapable would join the great Bayakoa and Royal Delta as the only horses to repeat in the Distaff. Of the eight Breeders’ Cups held in Kentucky at Churchill Downs, no California horse has won the Distaff. Bad sign for the favorites: No mare 5-year-olds or older has won the Distaff at any venue since Escena in 1998 at Churchill. The Spinster has produced the most winners at 10, though none during Keeneland’s Polytrack era. The Beldame is second at nine.