TOP SELECTIONS:
- Game Winner
- Code of Honor
- Well Defined
The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, now placed on Future Stars Friday, is the headliner of the afternoon. Fourteen horses will line up and it’s a good looking group at that! Bob Baffert seeks a fourth victory in the Juvenile, which would put him within one win of the all-time record set by D. Wayne Lukas. On the flip side, it’s a return to this race for the Hall of Fame trainer, Shug McGaughey. He makes his first appearance in the BC Juvenile in 17 years with Code of Honor. And lastly, Chad Brown looks to take the Juvenile in back to back years with another horse exiting the Champagne Stakes in Complexity.
When breaking down this race, on top, I won’t go around the favorite. Since Game Winner’s maiden victory, Bob Baffert has been full of confidence in this horse and his development from start to start. It came as a bit of a surprise to the public when he pulled the slight upset in the G1 Del Mar Futurity over his highly regarded stablemate, Roadster — his trainer, however, saw it coming. With the pedigree, Candy Ride on top and A.P. Indy on bottom, there’s no doubt that this horse is going to relish any additional ground he gets and will likely flourish as he does. We’ll have to wait to see him tackle a mile and a quarter, but the advantage he does have over the second and third top choices, is experience around two turns. He might be a short price, but in my opinion, off his past three performances, he’s the one to beat.
To find some value underneath, I look to Code of Honor. Off at odds of 14-1, Code of Honor found himself 10 lengths off the pace early in the G1 Champagne and came storming home to only get beat by three lengths. What I was most impressed by was with just one start under his belt, he showed the maturity to adapt to the situation, relax behind the pack, and never threw in the towel. Most young horses in that position would’ve given up, but Code of Honor just kept coming. It’s too bad we won’t get that juicy 14-1 come Friday!
Lastly, to round out my top three, I relied on thorograph to find me a price. Well Defined, for Kathleen O’Connell, has steadily been improving the entire year and off his last effort could be primed to take a step forward once again. He ran a 3 on the sheets last time out and the only other horses within the field with better numbers are your top two choices, Game Winner and Complexity, who each ran a 2. He has yet to face the type of competition he’s facing on Friday, but when in doubt, lean on Mike Smith. When asked why he landed on Well Defined he said, “I just loved the way he finished last out. I’m really excited about him.” That’s enough for me to back the horse underneath. There’s plenty of speed in the race, but Smith is great at getting a horse to relax when he needs to and Well Defined could be the runner to give him his third Breeders’ Cup Juvenile victory.
Pick: Well Defined
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