Ladies First

If any of the 45,000 fans get hung up in traffic and arrive at Gulfstream Park late on Saturday, they’ll miss the best race of the day on the Breeders’ Cup card.

The $4-million Classic may be the richest of the eight races, and it may have more horse-of-the- year implications, but the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff is the blockbuster. Running the Distaff as the first of the Breeders’ Cup races is a lot like having the posse arriving in the first reel instead of the last, but this is what happens when racing is dictated by the pick-six bean counters instead of the dramatists.

Arguably, this is the best Distaff field ever assembled. You could make a case for the 1988 race at Churchill Downs with Personal Ensign, Winning Colors and Goodbye Halo, who virtually hit the wire together, but if depth counts, this is the creme de la creme.

“You’ve got the big five,” trainer Carl Nafzger was saying. “Then you’ve got two other good mares trying to reach the top. You look at the past performances, and there are only two other horses in this field that might be considered question marks.”

Nafzger trains Banshee Breeze, who was second--beaten by only a nose--as Escena won the race last year. Yet Banshee Breeze, winner of four consecutive races early this year, is no better than 4-1--the third choice--on the Distaff’s morning line.

“It doesn’t take much for them to knock you down in this game,” Nafzger said. “That’s just the way this game is.”

Banshee Breeze, a 4-year-old daughter of Unbridled, whom Nafzger trained and who won the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1990, has finished second in her last two races, beaten by Beautiful Pleasure in the Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga and by Keeper Hill in the Spinster at Keeneland. Nafzger’s filly spotted Beautiful Pleasure 11 pounds at Saratoga; under the weight-for-age conditions at the Breeders’ Cup, each will carry 126 pounds.

Besides Banshee Breeze and Beautiful Pleasure, the other members of the Distaff’s big five are Silverbulletday, who has already clinched the Eclipse Award for 3-year-old filly with eight wins in 10 starts this year; Keeper Hill, apparently back on her game after ending a 10-race losing streak in the Spinster; and Manistique, the towering filly from California who has won nine of 12 starts overall.

Silverbulletday, beaten by Beautiful Pleasure on a sloppy track at Belmont Park in her last start, is still the 5-2 favorite, followed by Beautiful Pleasure, 3-1; Banshee Breeze, 4-1; Keeper Hill, 5-1; and Manistique, 6-1. Also running are Heritage Of Gold and Tap To Music, both 12-1; and the outsiders at 20-1--A Lady From Dixie and Louve Mysterieuse, a French filly making her first start on dirt.

Throw out Keeper Hill’s four-for-18 record--she has still earned $1.5 million and has seven seconds and five thirds--and the other eight horses have won 59% of the time. Besides Keeper Hill, there are three other millionaires--Silverbulletday, $2.8 million; Banshee Breeze, $2.3 million; and Manistique, $1.1 million.

Although the pot for the Distaff was doubled to $2 million last year, fillies and mares generally run for smaller purses than males the rest of the season, making it more difficult for a female to reach the seven-figure level.

Historically, the Distaff has been tinkered with more than any other Breeders’ Cup race. At the start, in 1984, the race was run at 1 1/4 miles before it was shortened to the current 1 1/8 in 1988. The Distaff started as the fifth of seven races on the Breeders’ Cup cards, was moved to the third race in 1987 and then became the fifth again last year.

This is the first year for an eight-race Breeders’ Cup card--the Filly and Mare Turf being new--and racing management’s mind-set being what it is--trying to set the table for the biggest payoffs--the races with the smallest likely fields were precluded from the pick six. Today’s first two Breeders’ Cup races--the Distaff and the Juvenile Fillies--are the only ones without full 14-horse fields.

Trainer John Ward and Donna Ward, his wife and a hands-on assistant trainer and exercise rider, have horses in both of the first two races. Besides Beautiful Pleasure, they are running Darling My Darling, a big threat to favored Chilukki in the Juvenile Fillies. John Ward, whose only Breeders’ Cup starter was Beautiful Pleasure when she was 10th in the Juvenile Fillies at Hollywood Park in 1997, finds this ironic.

Said Ward, “Here it is, the first year we’ve had two horses good enough to get this far, and we’re running into the best horses the Breeders’ Cup has seen in these two races in many moons.”

Ward said that in 1997, Beautiful Pleasure was eliminated by the time she got off the plane to California for the Juvenile Fillies. She drew the 13th post in a 14-horse field, broke awkwardly and was never in the hunt.

Since then, she has won four times and been second twice in nine starts. Banshee Breeze beat her in early August at Saratoga--carrying 11 pounds more--before Beautiful Pleasure won the Personal Ensign by 2 1/4 lengths and beat Silverbulletday by 4 3/4 lengths in the Beldame.

Ward dismisses the suggestion that the off track for the Beldame was responsible for Silverbulletday’s third loss and only her second in 16 starts against females.

“Our filly’s just as good on a dry track,” Ward said. “The mud might have compromised the competition, but it wouldn’t have made any difference to our filly.”

Beautiful Pleasure scooted to a comfortable early lead in that race, and by the time Silverbulletday and jockey Jerry Bailey set their sights on Ward’s filly in the stretch, it was too late.

“There will be no easy leads Saturday,” said Mike Pegram, who bought Silverbulletday at auction as an unraced 2-year-old for $155,000. “When Beautiful Pleasure hits the three-eighths pole, I guarantee you she will have company. It might not be us, but she will have company.”