My Conquestadory and We Miss Artie, a pair of Grade 1-winning 2-year-olds, carry the spotlight in this year’s Breeders’ Cup for their sire Artie Schiller.
My Conquestadory has been all the rage since her debut in the Summer S. (G2) at Woodbine on Sept. 13. Taking on the boys, she simply dominated her competitors with a 3 1/4-length win. Back three weeks later in the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland, she made another eye-popping move to roll home a 1 3/4-length winner.
She’ll be put to the test in Friday’s $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) after drawing the far outside in the field of 14, which had trainer Mark Casse less than pleased, but still confident.
“She’s shown she can handle adversity, although this is a much tougher field,” said Casse post-draw. “In any race, you have to have things go your way, and hopefully things go our way. If they go our way, she should have a good chance of winning.”
The Juvenile Fillies Turf is race 9 on Friday, with a scheduled post of 3:50 pm ET.
We Miss Artie fared somewhat better at the draw for the $2 million Juvenile (G1) on Saturday, getting post 10 in the 1 1/16-mile contest. A decisive winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland last month, We Miss Artie is trained by Todd Pletcher for Ken and Sarah Ramsey.
Though the Futurity was on the Polytrack, Pletcher likes the way We Miss Artie has trained on traditional dirt. “(Running here) made sense because we like the way this horse has trained on the dirt. It wouldn’t surprise me (if he won). Especially with Mr. Ramsey, the way he’s going.”
We Miss Artie will be ridden for the first time by Javier Castellano. Post time for the Juvenile, race 8 on Saturday, is 5:43 pm ET.
