Hughes makes it five out of five in Juvenile

Bob Baffert once again has the favourite for the Kentucky Derby as Hughes showed a different side to his character to remain unbeaten in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland.

Winner of his first four starts, Hughes was a short price to make it five in a row but with a furlong to run there were almost four in a line gunning for glory.

One of those was his stablemate Salahudin but having made almost all the running, Flavien Prat was able to see them all off from the front on Hughes

“Sometimes I make it look easy but easy isn’t easy! That was a great performance by both of my horses,” said Baffert

“I never quite knew how good Hughes was as he’s never been in a battle before today but he has been in one now. That was very impressive.

“I thought Salahudin was sitting pretty and I thought he would come late, and the fractions had been pretty hot. I could tell Flavien was riding pretty confidently though. The first four colts are all really good so it should be exciting next spring.

“You have to have a good horse to run well on the big days but you also need the racing luck.”

Irish ex-pat Brendan Walsh trained his first Breeders’ Cup winner in the Juvenile Fillies with Emphatic.

Tyler Gaffalione kicked for home before the final bend and it caught her main rival Miss Monica out of her ground as she took five lengths out of the field.

Miss Monica was closing relentlessly but the line came in time for Emphatic.

“It was about as perfect a prep as she could have had, I thought the only thing that could beat her was the bounce factor because she had run so well in the Alcibiades. I thought that was the only thing that could beat her,” said Walsh.

“She’s worked so good, and she’s done so well, and this week she was really, really good.

“Tyler did a great job. He took her away from everybody else and got her to relax, and I thought he did a fantastic job in the race itself as well. So it’s a dream come true for us.”