ARCADIA, Calif. - The biggest day in Pennsylvania racing history resonated across the country yesterday when the brilliant 3-year-old filly Untapable, winner of the Cotillion Stakes at Parx 6 weeks ago, circled the field to win the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff at Santa Anita, capping off a brilliant season. Ninety minutes before the Distaff, Tapiture, second in the Pennsylvania Derby which was run right after the Cotillion on Sept. 20, ran a race that probably would have beaten any miler in the country except for defending Dirt Mile champion Goldencents.
The jockey on the daughter and son of America's leading sire Tapit made much bigger news than either of her two mounts. Rosie Napravnik, the Maryland native who has become of the country's best jockeys, announced right after the race that she is 7 weeks pregnant and retiring, sort of, after the races today.
"It's indefinite," she said. "I'm not thinking about a comeback in 10 months, but I can't promise to stay off a horse forever."
If Untapable was Rosie's last great mount for a while, she is going out in wonderful style. America's best female horse of 2014 ran six times against members of her own sex this year and won them all, including a blowout win in the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Kentucky Derby. Her only loss was in the Haskell against males when she ran against the grain of the track.
"I can't say enough about her and how proud I am of her," the filly's trainer Steve Asmussen said. "Rosie and she are a great combination."
Untapable will race on as a 4-year-old. A real optimist who can count might even think Rosie could be back in time to ride the filly in the 2015 Breeders' Cup at Keeneland. Meanwhile, she will watch her husband, trainer Joe Sharp, win some races.
"His career is brand new and thriving, so it's kind of good timing," Napravnik said. "He's going to step into the limelight and I'm going to step out."
Untapable and Tapiture left Parx for Santa Anita the day after they ran so they could train for 6 weeks over the track. The plan worked rather well.
There is speed and then there is California speed. For the second consecutive year, jockey Rafael Bejarano sent Goldencents through crazy fast fractions (.22.06, 44.80) in the Dirt Mile and lived to tell the tale. Goldencents is not just fast, he is fast with a finish. The horse was 7-2 last year, the 3-5 favorite this year as he became the first repeat winner of the race, which became part of the BC program in 2007.
"I knew I was going fast and I had to find a way to give him a little break from the three-eighths to the quarter-pole," Bejarano said. "When the other horse started to come to me, I held onto him just a little bit before I turned him loose. When I turned him loose, he fired big"
The other horse was Tapiture, second to Bayern at Parx.
"Turning into the stretch I really didn't think there was any way I could get beat," Napravnik said. "But Goldencents is a really good horse. [Tapiture] kept fighting, but I just couldn't get by him."
Goldencents will not go for a threepeat. He will head for Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky on Sunday with $3 million in career earnings, a living lesson on the danger of early speed no matter how fast the fractions.
American trainers won the two BC grass races, even if one of the horses was owned by Europeans and has raced in Kentucky, Maryland, England and France. The other grass winner may have been the most impressive of the four Cup races.
Jockey-turned-trainer Wesley Ward, the lone American who regularly takes his horses to England's Royal Ascot meeting and wins, was so loaded in the Juvenile Turf that he ran 1-2 with world-traveler Hootenanny and Luck of the Kitten. International superstar Frankie Dettori rode the winner.
"I stayed in Florida to see my son's cross country race," Ward said. "He may not have run as well as Hootenanny, but it meant a lot to be there."
How good was Lady Eli in the Juvenile Fillies Turf? Hootenanny ran the mile in 1:34.14. Lady Eli ran the same distance in 1:33.41, finishing the final quarter mile in less than 23 seconds, about as fast as horses can run at the end, incredible for a 2-year-old. She looks like a potential grass superstar that will be winning major 2015 races for trainer Chad Brown and the brilliant young jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr.
"I remember the first time I saw her breeze on turf," Brown said. "It took my breath away."
There were 37,205 at Santa Anita yesterday. The crowd will be much larger for today's nine Cup races and if the main course is anything like the appetizer, the racing is going to be great, the results memorable.