BC – Mile
VegasInsider Staff Sports Betting Expert
Distance: 1 mile (T)
Purse: $2 million
Age: 3up
Date: Saturday, November 3
Time: 3:36 p.m. ET
The History
Where should I start?!?! Four horses have won multiple runnings, starting with Miesque beating the boys in 1987 and 1988. The speedy Lure won back to back runnings in 1992 and 1993 before failing to accomplish the three-peat in 1994. Da Hoss, amazingly, won it in 1996, ran once in between then re-rallied in the final strides to win it two years later in 1998. And, of course, Goldikova won three in a row from 2008 through 2010 before finishing third in 2011. In 2012, Wise Dan capped off his Horse of the Year campaign with a popular Mile score over 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and came back to defend his Mile title in 2013. It’s worth noting that Goldikova’s trainer Freddie Head has won three and is a five-time Mile winner and the only person to win a Breeders’ Cup race as a trainer and a jockey, as he was the regular rider of Miesque.
Favorites: 12 for 34 (35%)
Shortest: $3.60 (Wise Dan, 2012)
Highest: $131.60 (Court Vision, 1986)
U.S based: 21/Foreign based: 13
The champ is here? World Approval is not here to defend his title.
We’re going to switch the format up here. Euro shippers vs. U.S. runners. Here we go.
Euros
One Master is looking for the hat trick as the four-year-old filly comes into this off a pair of wins going seven furlongs against fillies in an Irish G3 and the G1 Prix de la Foret on the Arc undercard at Longchamp at 47-1. She has never raced beyond seven panels.
Sophomore filly Polydream will look to rebound having finished seventh to One Master last out as the 3-2 betting favorite. She beat the boys in her two prior starts, a G3 at Longchamp in June and a G1 at Deauville two back.
Fellow three-year-old filly I Can Fly just missed defeating Classic-bound Roaring Lion by a neck at Ascot two weeks ago in the G1 queen Elizabeth II and won an Irish G2 three starts back going this distance against the boys.
Expert Eye won the G3 Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot against fellow three-year-olds and the G2 City of York two back against older, both at seven furlongs. Winless in three starts at this distance, he was second in the G1 Sussex and third in the G1 Prix du Moulin at Longchamp nearly two months ago in his latest.
Happily is another three-year-old filly trying the boys here while seeking her first victory of 2017. A four-time winner last year, she was last in the B.C. Juvenile Fillies Turf as the 2-1 chalk when she encountered some trouble at Del Mar. She has faced some of the best in Europe this year, like Laurens, Roaring Lion and Alpha Centauri.Lightning Spear upset the Sussex at 9-1, his only tally from five starts this year. Second in the G1 Lockinge and third in the G1 Queen Anne at Royal Ascot to start the season, he’s finished off the board in his last pair, the Prix du Moulin and Queen Elizabeth II. He does own four wins at this distance.
Mustashry has won three of four starts this year, at seven furlongs, a mile and ten furlongs. His last two, a pair of G2 in England, were the two biggest of his career to date.
Gustav Klimt owns just one win and three other board placings from nine starts this season and is winless at five tries going a mile for.
U.S. based
After a ninth-place finish in the Turf last year, Oscar Performance returned over seven month later to win the G3 Poker at Belmont, breaking a 20-year-old course record for this distance in the process. After being pulled up in the last 100 yards of the ten-furlong, G1 Arlington Million for precautionary reasons, he cut back and led them gate-to-wire in the G1 Woodbine Mile, to run his record at this distance to a perfect three-for-three as he took the Juvenile Turf down in 2016.
Almanaar won the G1 Gulfstream Park Turf in February 2017 and returned a winner some 16 months later in a money allowance/optional claimer at Belmont. Second to stablemate Robert Bruce by just a half-length in the Arlington Million, he was a no-show in the G1 Shadwell Turf Mile last out over a course rated good.
Analyze It raced five-wide throughout the Shadwell in his first try against his elders as the 2-1 favorite after narrowly missing in the G3 Pennine Ridge, G1 Belmont Derby and G1 Secretariat at longer distances. The Shadwell was his first defeat in three tries at a mile.
Catapult has won his last pair since switching barns and moving to the West Coast. After a runner-up performance behind Sharp Samurai in his first SoCal start while racing off of am eight-plus month layoff at Santa Anita, he stormed home to win the G2 Eddie Read and G2 Del Mar Mile in San Diego.
Hunt finished well behind Catapult in his last two tries but did capture the G1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita in his only other start this season back in May. Like Oscar Performance, he was off the board in the Turf last year.
Next Shares win the restricted Old Friends Stakes at Kentucky Downs before upsetting the Shadwell at over 23-1 most recently. He was beaten less than a length in the Shoemaker Mile earlier this year and, like Hunt, didn’t seem to care for the Del Mar course this summer.
The following horses, in order, would need defections to get into the field.
Divisidero won over this course on three consecutive Kentucky Derby days from 2015 to 2017, including the G1 Turf Classic twice. He’s winless in five tries at a mile.
Clemmie would like to join her fellow Euro-trained sophomore fillies despite being winless in five starts this year, all at a mile and all races won by either Laurens or Alpha Centauri. She won three of her five starts last year, all graded stakes.
Qurbaan upset the G2 Bernard Baruch on closing day at Saratoga as the longest shot in the five-horse field then raced evenly through the stretch to get third in the Shadwell.
Great Wide Open was second at over 81-1 in the Shadwell after finishing second in the Tourist Mile at Kentucky Downs. He’s won just one of his 14 U.S. starts since arriving here nearly two years ago.
Hembree has one win and five runner-up finishes from seven starts at a mile. Winner of the G2 Nearctic and Woodbine last out, he’s likely to run in the Turf Sprint.
If I’m Right…
The Euros do NOT have a strong hand here this year.
Live Longshot
If Divisidero gets in, he’s the one. If not, Next Shares has really flourished since returning east. They’ll both be big prices.
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