Albigna still worth following for 2020

IT is debatable just how much could be learned about the European challengers in the juvenile races at the Breeders’ Cup, but a few of them did by no means badly under the alien circumstances of a tight circuit and very quick going.

Daahyeh emerged with plenty of credit, and with her stamina for a mile (under these conditions, at least) proven, by finishing a fine second to the 113-rated Sharing in the Juvenile Fillies Turf. But it was fourth-placed Albigna who really caught the eye, stuck out the back until making late gains, and she remains a good prospect for next year, possibly at middle distances.

Daahyeh’s 109 sectional rating and Albigna’s 108 has them behind only a handful of European-trained two-year-old fillies this year, headed by Raffle Prize on 115.

The filly who Raffle Prize beat narrowly at Royal Ascot, Kimari, went in the Turf Sprint and was another to find things happening rather too quickly until finishing quickest of all into fourth behind 115-rated Four Wheel Drive.

A similar fate befell Arizona in the Juvenile Turf, in which only the winner Structor (rated 114) ran the last quarter of a mile quicker than him. Arizona finished fifth, running to 111 on sectionals, but there seems to be nothing wrong with his 119 figure when second behind 130-rated Pinatubo.

Conditions on the dirt were slower on Friday than they on the Saturday, and that seemed to catch some jockeys out. The slowest finish of all in relative terms came in the Juvenile Fillies, in which the winner British Idiom posted a last-two-furlong finishing speed of just 89%. She can be rated at 113 but might not beat 116-rated Donna Veloce or 117-rated Bast next time, the last-named got caught up in the murderous early fractions.

The leaders got to halfway over a second slower in the Juvenile later on, but that was still quicker than ideal and Storm The Court plodded home in a 91% finishing speed to record a 120 sectional figure, for a short while the best by a two-year-old in North America this year.

That figure was surpassed 48 hours later by a colt called Independence Hall, who ran away with the Grade 3 Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct by over a dozen lengths and in a fast time. His 123 could plausibly be higher, and he is now favourite in one place for next year’s Kentucky Derby.