Breeders Cup Turf Sprint: Home team mighty dangerous with course specialist and live outsider

Some of the turf races at the Breeders Cup are dominated by invaders from Europe, which has a much deeper pool of quality grass horses than the US. The eponymous "Turf" leads the charge here, with the host nation typically getting a thrashing in this race (just one win in the last 12 years), followed by the Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf. Of course, if you remove Aidan O'Brien from the list of winners of the "JT" things look rather more even, but, er, you can't. He'll have the overwhelming favourite this year, whoever that is: Gstaad or Puerto Rico, by the sound of things.

But plenty of other races are more fiercely contested – and this applies in particular to the Mile, the Filly & Mare Turf, and the Juvenile Turf Sprint. In these races where honours have been more evenly split over the years, it's a bit daft to overlook the strength of the American contingent.

Then again, there are two races where where the foreign advantage is flipped on its head and the Americans simply dominate. These are the Juvenile Fillies Turf, where only two star fillies from Ballydoyle have prevented the US (or more accurately US trainer Chad Brown) from doing a clean sweep of the last decade, and the Turf Sprint.

In the 17 years since the latter was introduced into Breeders Cup weekend, honours have been far from equally shared. The current "win" table reads USA 14, Europe 2, Mongolia 1 (strange but true). This is a race in which instinctively giving a preference to the European raiders makes little statistical sense.

That said, things have improved somewhat for the raiding party. The two "Old World" wins have come in the last five years (Glass Slippers 2020, Starlust 2024), a timeframe in which Europe has sent a bigger cohort of decent horses and taken a total of 5 of the 15 podium places available. This year, for example, we can expect to see G1 winner Arizona Blaze and fellow Amo Racing hope Bucanero Fuerte, along with the talented fillies She's Quality and Frost At Dawn. Perhaps others will emerge the woodwork over the next 48 hours (pre-entries are due in today Monday, released on Wednesday).

But with the Anglo-Irish bookmaking community, only Arizona Blaze makes it into the top three in the betting for this year's Turf Sprint. And while Adrian Murray's colt has a chance given his strong performance over C&D last year and appears to to be not bad value at 8/1 (best 6/1 elsewhere, nota bene), we suspect the Americans have the stronger hand.

The US challenge is headed by the mare Ag Bullet and local sprint star Motorious. We'll pass on the former at 5/1. She was third in this race last year and was a brilliant winner of the G1 Jaipur Stakes up at Saratoga in the summer, but that was a weaker race over six furlongs, and a crucial observation here is that she has never won over the bare five.

Motorious is a different matter. A standing dish in southern California, this gelding has won no less than 8 of his 16 starts, including an impressive four of his last five – the sole defeat being by just a neck when finishing second to Starlust in this race last year. Getting on, yes (he's seven years old), but equally this gelding is quite clearly in as rich a vein of form as he's ever been.

Indeed, it's very difficult to see Motorious not running another excellent race on a track where his course and distance record reads 1-1-1-2-1. So he's the first play, as the best current price of 6/1 looks very fair, including the each-way angle for a horse who has never been more than a cigarette length's width from crossing the line first at Del Mar. Some may wish to wait for the fourth place which may or may not be dangled next week (the 5-furlong BC races at Del Mar are limited to 12 rather than 14 places), but we doubt 6/1 will be available by then.

But we like another, longer-priced US horse too. ln his most recent course win (the Green Flash Stakes), Motorious was actually not first past the post. He was beaten a nose by Reef Runner, who was disqualified for moving across after the start and interfering with the running lines of the horses immediately to his inside in the first furlong. Be that as it may, Reef Runner didn't get the best of trips himself and unleashed a corking rally to reach the wire first. Moreover, this 4-year-old gelding from the lesser-known stable of David Fawkes looks a much-improved horse in 2025, and has backed up his Green Flash "win" by taking the G2 Eddie D Stakes at Santa Anita.

Put simply, Reef Runner is a relatively young sprinter (4yo) in the form of his life who must surely start in single figures. With that in mind, 16/1 looks a gross aberration on the part of several bookmakers for a horse who passed the post in front of course specialist Motorious on his only Del Mar start. He appeals as a cracking win-only play at that price.

Recommendation: Back Motorious each-way at 6/1 with Bet MGM and Virginbet (11/2 Bet365 is fine too) and Reef Runner win-only at 16/1 with Ladbrokes, Coral, Bet MGM and Virginbet in the Breeders Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar on 1 November.