THREE races for fillies and mares aged three and upwards are on the Breeders’ Cup programme. They were won by a pair of five-year-olds, one born in Canada, and a three-year-old.

The Canadian-bred Moira came agonisingly close to having $3 million in the bank after she improved on her third-place finish in last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita, to win this year’s edition. Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old in her native country, she was winning a Grade 1 for the first time, her other successes include the Grade 2 Beverly D. Stakes and Canadian Stakes.

Bred by Adena Springs and a $150,000 Keeneland September Sale yearling, Moira sold just two days after her biggest win for $4.3 million at Fasig-Tipton. She had been listed as a $3 million sale at the same sale a year earlier.

The veteran Ghostzapper (Awesome Again), sire of Moira, went to stud in 2006, and he is one of a select group of stallions to sire more than 100 stakes winners. Horse of the Year himself, and winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, Ghostzapper retired at a fee of $200,000, but five years later that had collapsed to just $20,000. He climbed the ladder of success again, and this year commanded $75,000, despite being 24 years of age.

Moira is Grade 1 winner number 15, an average of one a year if you omit his current crop of two-year-olds, and his three-year-olds this year include the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby winner Stronghold. He has a fine record at the Breeders’ Cup, and Moira joins champions Goodnight Olive and Judy The Beauty who between them won the Grade 1 Filly & Mare Sprint three times.

The first winner at the highest level in four generations, Moira has a solid pedigree. She and the stakes winner Jungle Cry (Animal Kingdom) are two of the three winners, all her offspring to race, from the dual US stakes winner Devine Aida (Unbridled’s Song). She, in turn, is the best of five winners out of Grade 3 winner Passion (Came Home), and her four wins and a couple of Grade 2 placed efforts were gained from only seven starts.

A flying Angel

A daughter of the little-known Atreides (Medaglia D’Oro), Soul Of An Angel was offered for sale as a yearling in 2020, but RNA’d at just $3,000. Today, she is a Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winner, in the Filly & Mare Sprint, and her six wins in 41 starts have won her connections almost $1.2 million. At four she won for the second time, and first time in a stakes race, but this year she has been a revelation, with four victories.

Successful in the Grade 2 Ruffian Stakes, Soul Of An Angel gained her berth at the Breeders’ Cup thanks to her win in the Grade 3 Princess Rooney Invitational Stakes. She ran the great Idiomatic to a head in the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher Stakes, but threw her chances away at the start of the Grade 1 Personal Ensign Stakes, finally running on to be a well-beaten third. She was no forlorn chance at Del Mar, though her win was not expected.

Atreides won a minor stakes race and his seven crops of racing age contain just 117 runners, 83 of which are winners. Soul Of An Angel is his sole graded stakes winner among four to have earned blacktype. The female side of her family is also quite ordinary, even though there is a second Grade 1 winner up close.

The Filly & Mare Sprint winner is one of two winners for Factor One (The Factor), and she failed to even place when racing. Nonetheless, a place in the breeding shed was certain as her half-brother had won a six-runner Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont at two. However, he did not build on that, and went on to win a total of 14 races until the age of nine. He was the best of the five winners out of One Last Salute (Salutely), a minor stakes-placed winner of three races.

Most of the sires and races that are mentioned in this pedigree are unknown to most of us. One Last Salute’s full-brother Sean’s Ferrari (Salutely) won the Listed Maryland Nursery Stakes at Pimlico, and he was one of nine winners from the juvenile winner Angie’s Star (Lord Rebeau).

Thorpedo Anna

What a year Thorpedo Anna has had. A daughter of another son of Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado), the stakes-placed Fast Anna, she won two of her three juvenile outings, but was beaten into second place on her only start in a stakes race, the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes. This year it was only a head defeat by Fierceness in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes that denied her an unbeaten seven race winning sequence.

After starting her sophomore year with a four-length romp in the Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes, she has only raced at Grade 1 level, winning five. First up was a near five-length romp in the Kentucky Oaks, followed a month later by an eased-down success in the Acorn Stakes. Only three fillies faced her in the CCA Oaks, which was a dawdle, and then came the Travers.

She was run close by a longshot in the Grade 1 Cotillion Stakes, but won, even if it wasn’t in the style of a 1/10 shot. However, she will surely be champion of her age and sex after her eighth win in 10 starts at Del Mar. She has banked more than $3.8 million for connections, some return on her $40,000 yearling price. She is the best runner by far for both her sire and dam, and the only runner among 14 stakes winners by Fast Anna to win at graded level.

Perfect record

Thorpedo Anna’s dam, the unraced Sataves (Uncle Mo), has a perfect record at stud, her first three foals all being winners. The latest to join that cohort is McAfee (Cloud Computing), and he has won his only start this year at two, successful on the first day of this month at Churchill Downs. The other winner, Charlee O (Tourist) failed to sell at $500,000 on the first day of the Keeneland November Sale this week.

Sataves has five winning siblings, none of whom earned any blacktype, but that is in sharp contrast with the Breeders’ Cup winner’s third dam, Aldebaran Light (Seattle Slew). She had five winners, two of them at the top level in racing. Eskendereya (Giant’s Causeway) won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes at two, and the following year went higher and landed the Grade 1 Wood Memorial Stakes. At stud he sired the Eclipse champion sprinter in the USA, Mitole, and the dual Grade 1 winner and Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby runner-up Mor Spirit.

Eskendereya’s older half-brother Balmont (Stravinsky) was one of the best juveniles of his year, his four victories including the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes and the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes. He was placed in both the Group 1 Golden Jubilee Stakes and July Cup. Balmont stood for a few seasons in Tara Stud before moving to North America. He had a son and daughter who both came within a length of winning a Group 1.