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The venue this year is Del Mar, the track where the turf meets the surf and forever connected with Bing Crosby.
It was the go-to venue for the Holywood glamour set of the 30s and 40s and there are many tales of horses and many more of parties and associated exploits.
This year there are 14 Grade 1 races for which 179 horses have entered. They come from nine different countries and include 67 international runners. Until recently the meeting has been seen as a USA v Europe thing but we can now add a third force to that – Japan.
Day 1 is Friday 1st November and it's the day for the babies or in correct parlance the juveniles. It starts off with the Juvenile Turf Sprint over 1000m with a full field of 14 runners. This may well be where Japan gets things rolling with Ecoro Sieg, a USA bred colt by Twirling Candy. Mori does the training and Lemaire the riding for this very promising youngster. He's still an unknown quantity but then so are many of them.
He's favourite on 7/2 and there are three others with good chances all on 9/2 – Big Mojo, by Mahaather for Michael Appleby and Tom Marquand, Wathnam Racing's Aesterius by Mehmas for Archie Watson and James Doyle, and we are proud to say our alter ego Whistleacket is also there representing Ireland – he's by No Nay Never and comes from the powerful Coolmore yard of Aidan O'Brien with Ryan Moore riding.
The Juvenile Fillies is over 1700m and there are three runners in single figures in the market – Scottish Lassie on 5/2 – a McKinzie for Abreu-Lezcano, Immersive an unbeaten Nyquist daughter with Cox-Franco on 3/1 and the Japanese challenger American Bikini on 5/1 with Ryan Moore riding the daughter of American Pharoah who has been impressive in Japan and 5/1 looks grab-able.
The Juvenile Fillies Turf is over 1600m and O'Brien-Moore combine with the daughter of Frankel Lake Victoria who is on evens. She's unbeaten in her four starts to date and looks special. The Americans are very keen on Thought Process who has won her last three starts and is a double c&d winner – she's by Collected who is turning out to be an undervalued sire. D'Amato trains and Berrios rides and 5/2 the quote. Lake Victoria's stablemate Heaven's Gate has firmed into 8/1. Wane Lordan rides this daughter of Churchill. Special note here as jockey Jorge Ruiz Díaz will be the first Argentinian jockey to ride in the meeting when he mounts Correto for Graham Motion in this race.
The Breeders' Cup Juvenile is over 1700m and has 10 runners. Everyone seems to agree that Godolphin's East River is the go here – he's by Medaglia d'Oro and is trained by Brendan Walsh who will leg up Tyle Gaffalione here – 5/2 if you can get it. We actually may go for Chancer McPatrick – he's by McKinzie and with Chad Brown with Prat riding and he's unbeaten in his three starts to date. Jonathan's Way is on 9/2 for Bauer-Rosario. He's by Vekoma and on 9/2 and we will add Ferocious to the mix. There are two Japanese runners here – Shin Believe who will be ridden by Yutaka Take and is on 14/1 and Ecoro Azul on 16/1. They may be here for the experience.
The Juvenile Turf has 12 runners over 1600m. Andrew Balding's New Century is still on top at 4/1 having eased overnight. Oisin Murphy rides the son of Kameko. Godolphin's No Nay Neverf colt Al Qudra is 6/1 with James Doyle riding for Charlie Appleby and Henri Matisse is on 7/1 for O'Brien-Moore – he's by Wooton Basset who is the sire of the moment in Ireland. However we have a (sort-of) roughie here in Satono Carneval 11/1 as the jockey is our own Rachel King. Hori-sensei wouldn't have brought her over for a seaside holida and the horse is undefeated in two starts.