Undefeated colts from the two most powerful barns in the sport headline the 15 horses pre-entered in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs.
Game Winner, trained by three-time Juvenile winner Bob Baffert, is 3 for 3 with a victory in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 29. Complexity, trained by last year’s Juvenile winning conditioner Chad Brown, is 2 for 2 with a victory in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes on Oct. 6 at Belmont Park.
Those two will most likely be the first and second betting choices in the Juvenile, which will be one of five races for 2-year-olds run on the Nov. 2 program.
Code of Honor, trained by Shug McGaughey _ who won the Juvenile in 1989 _ was second in the Juvenile after a stumbling start and will likely be the third betting favorite.
There were no European-based runners pre-entered in the Juvenile and basically only two surprise pre-entrants. Topper T, an Iowa-bred who has won 2 of 5 starts, was recently purchased by Adam Wachtel, Gary Barter and Pantofel Stable and transferred to Bill Mott. Derby Date, a maiden trained by five-time Juvenile winning trainer D. Wayne Lukas was pre-entered but was ranked 15th by the Breeders’ Cup Racing Secretaries/Selection Panel, meaning he would need one defection to get in the field. He may get it as Trophy Chaser, fifth in the Champagne, was pre-entered in the Juvenile but is expected to run in the Street Sense Stakes the same day according to trainer Juan Carlos Avila.
Final entries, where post positions will be drawn, will take place Monday.
In alphabetical order, and with probable jockey assignments, the Juvenile pre-entrants are: Complexity (Jose Ortiz), Code of Honor (John Velazquez), Dueling (Manny Franco), Game Winner (Joel Rosario), Gunmetal Gray (Flavien Prat), Knicks Go (Albin Jimenez), Mind Control (Irad Ortiz Jr.), Mr. Money (Gabe Saez), Signalman (Brian Hernandez Jr.) Standard Deviation (Javier Castellano) Tight Ten (Ricardo Santana Jr.), Topper T (unknown), Trophy Chaser (unknown), Well Defined (Mike Smith). AE: Derby Date (unknown).