ARCADIA — With one horse to beat in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, jockey Junior Alvarado and Just FYI stuck close behind her and hoped for good things to happen in the stretch.
They did happen. Heavily favored Tamara faded rapidly. Just FYI accepted the lead and went on to a narrow victory in the $2 million race for 2-year-old fillies, one of five Breeders’ Cup races held Friday at Santa Anita.
“Once I saw Tamara was on the lead,” Alvarado said of his thinking in the early stages of the 1-1/16-mile race, “it was kind of easy for me to sit right off (her), since I wanted to make sure I have a target for my filly.”
Just FYI, a daughter of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify who is trained in New York by Bill Mott for breeder-owner George Krikorian, is undefeated in three starts after winning by a neck over Jody’s Pride and three-quarters of a length over Candied. She paid $16 to win.
Tamara, seen by some as the potential equal of her dam Beholder, was on her way to her third win in three starts but dropped back quickly in the last furlong as she and jockey Mike Smith finished 8¼ lengths back in seventh. She had been a 4-5 favorite.
Workout analysts hadn’t been impressed with how Tamara looked in training recently, giving pause to a lot of bettors.
The result made a bad week worse for trainer Richard Mandella, whose Geaux Rocket Ride suffered a fatal leg injury last weekend while training at Santa Anita for Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.
It could be the start of a big weekend for Alvarado, Mott and Krikorian.
Alvarado, Mott and Krikorian have War Like Goddess in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Turf. Alvarado and Mott have Cody’s Wish, the defending champion and 9-5 morning-line favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Saturday. And Mott has Elite Power, another defending champion and 9-5 favorite, in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
Just FYI came into the Breeders’ Cup after dominating the Frizette, but that race wasn’t convincing because it was run on a sloppy track at Aqueduct and produced a low speed figure.
Krikorian, the Southern California movie-theater magnate who bred the mare Star Act to Justify to get Just FYI, gave credit to Alvarado for the Juvenile Fillies win as the two men talked with reporters.
“The way he placed that horse today,” Krikorian said of Just FYI’s early position in second behind Tamara, “it was phenomenal, just to lay off the lead (and) save her to run down the stretch. It was just great. Thank you.”
THE UNDERCARD
It was a day of wins by high-profile barns on the day Todd Pletcher-trained Fierceness ($35) won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Mott-trained Just FYI won the Juvenile Fillies.
Hard to Justify, with Flavien Prat riding for trainer Chad Brown, won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf by one-half length and paid $20.20.
Unquestionable, with Ryan Moore jumping aboard after Aidan O’Brien stablemate River Tiber was scratched, took control of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in the stretch to pay $5 as the favorite.
Those were the 17th Breeders’ Cup victories for both Brown and O’Brien, trailing only D. Wayne Lukas (20) and Bob Baffert (18) in career wins at the event.
England-based Big Evs won the first Breeders’ Cup race, the Juvenile Turf Sprint, for jockey Tom Marquand and trainer Michael Appleby in an $8.40 upset of fourth-place No Nay Mets.
TWO HORSES INJURED
Bus Buzz, a 3-year-old gelding who was pulled up in the stretch of the non-Breeders’ Cup 10th race, is scheduled for surgery on Sunday, Santa Anita said in a statement that provided no detail about the horse’s injury.
Bus Buzz is a California-bred, trained by Steve Knapp and ridden Friday by Edwin Maldonado, who was making his eighth start after debuting in February. He won the Real Good Deal Stakes at Del Mar in August.
Mountain Bear was vanned off the track after finishing second in the Juvenile Turf and was determined to have sustained a non-displaced lateral condylar fracture in his left foreleg. Full recovery was expected, according to a Breeders’ Cup announcement.
ON THE SURFACE
No horses led from start to finish on either the main track or turf course – including non-Breeders’ Cup races – but it didn’t look impossible for horses with early speed to win Friday.
Fierceness and Just FYI on dirt and Big Evs and Hard to Justify on grass were running second early in their victories.
WHO’S FAVORED?
There was early betting Friday on Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, but no information about odds was available.
Probable payoffs in the Juvenile-Classic double indicated White Abarrio and Ushba Tesoro were drawing the most money in the Classic, ahead of morning-line favorite Arabian Knight.
CROWD COUNT
Santa Anita announced on-track attendance of 43,377, more than the 39,851 on day 1 of the Breeders’ Cup in 2022 at Keeneland and the 41,243 in 2019 the last time it was in Arcadia. The track said the overall betting handle was $61,747,341, lower than the $66.1 million in 2022 and higher than the $56.5 million in 2019.
SCRATCH THAT
Eleven horses were scratched Friday morning from the afternoon’s five Breeders’ Cup races, a result of intense pre-race scrutiny by Breeders’ Cup veterinarians.
The most prominent was River Tiber, the Ireland-based 3-1 morning-line favorite for the Juvenile Turf.
As of Friday evening, at least 10 horses had been scratched from Saturday’s nine Breeders’ Cup races, a number that includes Dirt Mile contender Practical Move, who collapsed and died after a morning gallop Tuesday, and Classic contender Arcangelo, the Belmont Stakes winner who was scratched and retired from racing on Tuesday.
