BC – Turf
VegasInsider Staff Sports Betting Expert
Distance: 1 1/2 miles (T)
Purse: $4 million
Age: 3up
Date: Saturday, November 3
Time: 4:56 p.m. ET
The History
Pebbles in 1985 and Miss Alleged in 1991 are the only two fillies to have beaten the boys in this. Theatrical finally got the job done in 1987 and more importantly helped forge the Bill Mott/Allen Paulson partnership that would rule the sport for a decade. Kotashaan capped an amazing Horse of the Year season with a win in 1993. High Chaparral won it in 2002, then dead-heated with Johar in 2003, the only dead heat for win in Breeders’ Cup history. Better Talk Now won it in 2004 before failing to do so the next four years. Conduit won consecutive runnings in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, trainer Aidan O’Brien trained St. Nicholas Abbey to win with his son Joe in the saddle. Main Sequence won his fourth G1 in as many tries with his patented late run to take it down in 2014.
Favorites: 9 for 34 (26%)
Shortest: $3.80 (High Chaparral, 2002 and Conduit, 2009)
Highest: $108.80 (Lashkari, 1984)
U.S based: 13/Foreign based: 22
The champ is here? Talismanic is coming back to defend his crown.
The Best
Two-time G1 Arc de Triomphe winner Enable makes the trip over from Europe while making just her third start of the season for trainer John Gosden.
Enable comes into the Turf having won all but one of her 10 starts and is on an eight-race winning streak. As a three-year-old last season, she won six straight after a third place-finish to start the season, with five victories coming in G1 races, including the Arc by over two lengths.
This season, Enable has had a far less taxing campaign as she didn’t return for 11 months before taking the G3 September over a synthetic surface before taking her second Arc by a neck.
She has essentially been pointing for this event this season but will have to overcome the fact that an Arc winner has never won the Turf.
Defending Turf champ Talismanic has won just two of his five starts since upsetting this last year at 14-1 for his trainer Andre Fabre.
Second in the G1 Hong Kong vase to wrap up 2017, Talismanic was pointed for the G1 Dubai World Cup on dirt at the beginning of this year a won a prep over a synthetic surface before failing to run a step when beaten 29 lengths in the World Cup.
Talismanic returned over four months later to finish second in a G2 in France before getting beat 11 lengths in the Arc.Fabre will also send out fourth-place Arc runner Waldgeist, who’ll be making his third start off of an 11-week break.
Waldgeist was a G1 winner in three tries as a two-year-old before going winless in five starts last season.
This season, Waldgeist has turned things around. After a fifth-place finish in his return from a five-month layoff, he won four consecutive starts, including the G1 Prix de Saint-Cloud and G2 Prix Roy, the latter over Talismanic.
The Rest
Crystal Ocean is looking for his first G1 win after finishing second in his last three starts, including the September two back behind enable. He races just two weeks before the turf when Cracksman beat him by six lengths in the G1 Champion Stakes at Ascot.
Three-year-old filly Magical comes over for Coolmore and Aidan O’Brien off of a win in the G1 British Champions at Ascot at this distance a couple of weeks ago. This will be her third start in four weeks as she finished over five-lengths behind Enable in the Arc.
Robert Bruce was undefeated in his native Chile before shipping to the States this year. He won the G3 Ft. Marcy in his first U.S. start before a tough-trip in the G1 Manhattan where he was beaten just a length snapped his undefeated streak. A well-timed move resulted in a half-length tally in the G1 Arlington Million in August. Last out, he didn’t seem to handle the soft ground when he was second in the G1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont going this distance.
Channel Maker took them gate-to-wire in the Joe Hirsch last out and has really seemed to turn things around since being ridden more aggressively and placed forwardly in his races. He dead-heated for the win in the G2 Bowling Green before chasing the winner in the G1 Sword Dancer, both at Saratoga, in his two prior efforts.
Glorious Empire was the won Channel Maker dead-heated with at 22-1 and couldn’t catch at 15-1 up at the Spa this summer. A former claimer, he could just be a horse-for-the-course as his three best races by far have come at the upstate N.Y. oval.
Sadler’s Joy rallied to finish fourth in this heat last year before starting this season with a score in the G2 Mac Diarmida at Gulfstream. He’s winless since but did just miss when second by a neck in the Manhattan and third in the Bowling Green and Joe Hirsch.
Hunting Horn was third in the G1 Belmont Derby and eighth in the G1 Secretariat at Arlington, both against three-year-olds, earlier this summer when he shipped over the pond. Still eligible for a second level allowance contest, he finished over 16 lengths behind Enable in the Arc most recently.
Hi Happy won the G2 Pan American at Gulfstream going this distance and G1 Man O’ War at Belmont at a furlong shorter earlier this spring but has tailed off since a third pace finish in the Manhattan. Perhaps he didn’t care for the Spa, where he was off-the-board in both the Bowling Green and Sword Dancer. He was second going shorter in the G2 Knickerbocker back at Belmont on Columbus Day.
Arklow was second in the G2 Sycamore at Keeneland just two weeks ago after winning both the prep for the G3 Kentucky Cup Classic at 10 furlongs at Ellis Park and the race itself at this trip two starts back.
Liam the Charmer won his last two starts off of a year layoff since being gelded this summer, including the G2 John Henry Turf Cup at Santa Anita a month ago.
Quarteto de Cordas ships up from Brazil and makes his first start for Ian Wilkes off of an early August layoff. He’s won five of 16 overall and one of three at this trip on turf.
If I’m Right...
Enable is just too much for this bunch and will break the Arc/Turf jinx.
Live Longshot
Sadler’s Joy should get a great set up as there seems to be a good deal of pace signed on in here. Americans usually get lost in the shuffle on the tote board in this so we should get 15-1 or more.
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