Buchu , running just two weeks after her maiden win, ran a peach of a race in the Jessamine Stakes (G2T) at Keeneland Oct. 6, kicking away to a 3 3/4-length victory and a trip to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T).
The Justify filly, with Martin Garcia up, started from gate 10 in a field of 11 for the 1 1/16-mile test. Well back early, she rallied quickly turning into the stretch and cleared the field inside the sixteenth pole.
Pharoah’s Wine , Crown Imperial , Bella Haze , and Moonlight Gambler were the next four under the wire in a close bunch in a race that looked wide open in the paddock. Buchu was clocked in 1:42.48 over turf rated good after light overnight rain.
Buchu, a homebred filly for Rigney Racing, is out of the Galileo mare Flowering Peach . Trainer Phil Bauer said Buchu is an ingredient in peach flavoring and added, “She’s a peach.”
Bauer said Buchu’s first two starts on the dirt, at Ellis Park and Saratoga Race Course, were the result of “Mother Nature getting in our way. Our main goal was to get her on the lawn. Her pedigree was always on that side.”
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Bauer Discusses the Quick Return from Buchu After a Maiden Win at Churchill Downs Last Month
She finished third in both dirt starts, the second of which was rained off the turf. Finally put on the green course at Saratoga Aug. 20, she was bumped around and checked at the quarter-pole in her first start at the 1 1/16-mile distance and finished sixth.
“It’s always a good test of ability when you take them to New York,” Bauer said.
Back at Churchill Downs Sept. 23, she rallied smartly from a pace-stalking trip to win by 4 3/4 lengths, setting the table for the Jessamine, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series: Win and You’re In event.
“Sometimes the key in horse racing is to get them when they’re right,” Bauer said of the decision to run back so quickly. “Now I’m overwhelmed that we’re going to the Breeders’ Cup with a 2-year-old.”
Phil Bauer after Buchu’s win in the Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland
Bauer credited jockey Martin Garcia, who also rode Buchu in Louisville.
“He did a wonderful job,” Bauer said. “A horse moved up on his outside and he just knew that he had a lot of horse underneath.”
Garcia said he knew there was early speed in the race “so I just let her break and relax. In the first turn I just took it easy and took her back and she relaxed on the backside. At the five-sixteenths (pole) I just took her out and then I asked her to go, and all I could see was just going by horses. I’m like, ‘I’m going to win!'”
Bauer said Buchu will stay in Kentucky for a few weeks before shipping to Santa Anita Park for her date on Breeders’ Cup’s “Future Stars” day Nov. 3 and won’t have a lot of work to do.
“With two races in 13 days, she’s as good as it gets,” he said.
Justify, the 2018 United States Triple Crown winner, has quickly become a highly successful sire on three continents. His current top performers also include Hard to Justify , winner of the Miss Grillo Stakes (G2T), a Win and You’re In for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G2T); Opera Singer , winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac (G1) at Longchamp in Paris; and Learning to Fly, a group 2 winner in Australia. By Scat Daddy out of the Ghostzapper mare Stage Magic , he stands at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., for $100,000.
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