The Filly & Mare Sprint is run around one turn at seven furlongs (about 1,500 yards) for the fastest females, 3-years-old and up.

Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint

Gamine returns to defend Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint Title

In the $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) at 7 furlongs, Michael Lund Petersen's Gamine is the defending champion. The 4-year-old filly, trained by Bob Baffert, has won all four of her starts this year, including Grade 1 scores in the Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs and the Kettle One Ballerina at Saratoga.

Bo Hirsch's Ce Ce, fifth in last year's Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), gained a "Win and You're In" for the Filly & Mare Sprint when she won Gulfstream Park's Princess Rooney (G2) in July.

Hronis Racing's Edgeway, trained by John Sadler, won the Rancho Bernardo Handicap (G3) at Del Mar in August.

Gamine

Last year's runaway $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) winner Gamine is on track to defend her title at Del Mar this November.

She has returned with a splash as a 4-year-old with victories in the Derby City Distaff Stakes presented by Kendall-Jackson Winery (G1) and Ketel One Ballerina Handicap (G1) to lead the way.

A $1.8 million 2-year-old purchase, Gamine has more than lived up to the expectations that came with that price tag in her two seasons of racing. The filly has won nine of her 10 starts, including five Grade 1 victories and took home champion female sprinter honors last year.

"You always dream about if you get a good horse, but if you add up the numbers, there are people who are so much more involved in the horse business than I am and buy so many more horses, said owner Michael Lund Peterson to The BloodHorse on Jan. 28, 2021. "That I would be blessed to have a once-in-a-lifetime horse like that, I'm just grateful. What can I say? I'm just enjoying the ride."

Gamine gave her owner his first Breeders' Cup win after two previous tries with her 6 ¼-length romp in track-record time. Gamine is one of five Breeders' Cup winners for her sire, Into Mischief. The filly helped her sire hit multiple milestones with last year's victory. She was his second Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint winner in two years following Covfefe, and one of two 2020 Breeders' Cup winners for the stallion alongside Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Authentic.

If Gamine wins a second Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, she will join 2012 and 2013 winner Groupie Doll as the only two dual winners of the race since it first ran in 2007.

Ce Ce

Ce Ce will be a repeat contender in the Breeders' Cup World Championships. This year, she heads to the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) through her Breeders' Cup Challenge victory in the Princess Rooney Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

She made a name for herself last year by winning two Grade 1 races: the Beholder Mile Stakes and the Apple Blossom Handicap.

After these races, she finished third in both the Santa Maria Stakes (G2) and the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1). The chestnut mare is owned by Bo Hirsch, and the latter race is named in honor of his father, who was a Del Mar board member, a founder of the Oak Tree Meet at Santa Anita and helped broaden the California racing calendar into the fall.

Ce Ce closed 2020 with a fifth-place finish in the Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), won by champion Monomoy Girl. She has finished in the top three in 10 of her 14 starts and has earnings of more than $1 million.

Bo Hirsch also bred and owned Ce Ce's dam, Miss Houdini, and Clement Hirsch owned Miss Houdini's mother and Ce Ce's granddam, Magical Maiden. Ce Ce is a nickname for Cecelia, the name of Harry Houdini's mother. Another top runner for Bo Hirsch was multiple graded stakes winner Papa Clem, who he named in honor of his father.

Trainer Michael McCarthy, 50, saddled 2021 Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Rombauer and 2018 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) victor City of Light. He was a longtime assistant to Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher before going out on his own in 2014. He grew up in Arcadia, California, in a home close enough to Santa Anita to hear the race calls from his front lawn.

Proud Emma

A $9,000 yearling, Proud Emma has lived up to her name by making her connections more than proud with nine top two finishes in her career.

The 5-year-old mare has been campaigned around the country from New York to Kentucky to California and along the way has raced in 12 stakes races. Her first stakes win came in her fourth dirt stakes start when she made a permanent move to California and won the 2020 Tranquility Lake Stakes at Del Mar.

Proud Emma earned many frequent flyer miles in the first half of her career, but since that stakes win, she has been a mainstay on the southern California circuit.

She won her first graded stakes last December in the Bayakoa Stakes (G3) over 1 1/16 miles, but her connections have focused on leaving her at the sprint distances in all but one start this year.

"She ran great,'' co-owner Tom Kagele said after the Bayakoa victory. "We've been trying to get a graded stakes with her and she finally did it for us today. She likes to sit off it and it set up very nicely for her. We were confident she would come running. She shows up every time, but this was awesome.

While she has performed credibly at Santa Anita, the daughter of Include has proven that Del Mar - the location of this year's Breeders' Cup - is one of her favorite tracks.

Her love affair with Del Mar goes back to 2018 when she won going a mile over it in her third start. Her only bad race at Del Mar has come on the turf, with the filly never running worse than second on the Del Mar dirt for four Del Mar placings.

Proud Emma has been a part of Peter Miller's barn since early in her 3-year-old year and will be looking to give him his sixth Breeders' Cup victory. Four of those came from two horses - Roy H and Stormy Liberal, who gave him Breeders' Cup doubles in 2017 and 2018.

Miller scored his fifth win in 2019 when Belvoir Bay was a feel-good winner of the Breeder's Cup Turf Sprint. Her track record-breaking win came less than two years after disappearing for several days during the devastating San Luis Rey Downs fire in 2017.

The Kentucky-bred filly is set to become the 18th Breeders' Cup runner for her breeder Brereton C. Jones. That breeder registered his only winner in 2000 when Caressing won that year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).

Edgeway

Nearly 69 percent of Edgeway's earnings have come in her 4-year-old season, when she has sprinted to three wins in four starts including her first graded score, the Rancho Bernardo Handicap (G3) at Del Mar in August.

The Rancho Bernardo was a milestone not only for Edgeway. With the win the filly became the first stakes winner born to her dam, Magical Solution. With $379,200 in the bank through August, Edgeway is the top earner in 2021 for her sire, Competitive Edge.

Edgeway has shown no reluctance to mix it up on the front end. As a 3-year-old she showed promise from the start, leading all the way to win her first race by 5 lengths. After two wins from four starts at 3 and an eight-month layoff, she started her 4-year-old season with two straight wins, including the listed Carousel Stakes at Oaklawn. In her only finish out of the money, she broke slowly, then went after the pacesetter in the Great Lady M Stakes (G2) at Los Alamitos. She settled for a well-beaten fourth behind that frontrunner - 2020 Eclipse Award Champion Female Sprinter Gamine.

Edgeway has been publicly auctioned twice, first for $35,000 to Erich Brehm out of the Keeneland 2017 November Breeding Stock Sale and then to Martin Anthony for $275,000 out of the OBS April 2019 Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training.

Hronis Racing LLC owns Edgeway and, like the operation's other runners, she is trained by John Sadler. Brothers Kosta and Pete Hronis earned the Eclipse Award as Outstanding Owner in 2018, the year their Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Accelerate won five Grade 1 races and was named Eclipse Award Champion Older Dirt Male. He is Hronis Racing's sole Breeders' Cup winner from 18 entries. Among the others was Stellar Wind, second in the 2015 Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) and that year's Eclipse Award Champion 3-Year-Old Filly.

Kosta and Pete Hronis are president and senior vice president sales and marketing, respectively, of the family business, Hronis, Inc., a California grower of table grapes and citrus that ship worldwide.

Sadler has trained 52 Breeders' Cup entries, including Accelerate, who also is the trainer's only winner in the World Championships. He has finished second with Stellar Wind and Switch in the 2010 and 2011 Filly & Mare Sprint (G1). A former show jumper equestrian, Sadler was assistant to trainer David Hofmans before opening his own stable at age 22 in 1978.

Bella Sofia

It would be no exaggeration to say Bella Sofia took the world by storm this summer or at least the New York racing circuit where the speedy 3-year-old filly won four of five races. She is now poised to take on the best female sprinters in the country in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).

Bella Sofia began her career at Belmont Park May 6, 2021 with a debut maiden special weight win by 11 ¼ lengths before finishing second in the Jersey Girl Stakes. A dominating Belmont allowance win July 11 would set up Bella Sofia for her career effort in the Longines Test Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course.

Trained by Rudy Rodriguez, the Kentucky-bred daughter of Awesome Patriot drew off in the Aug. 7 Test becoming a Grade 1 winner in only her fourth career start. Most recently, Bella Sofia won the Gallant Bloom Handicap (G2) at Belmont Park to push her career earnings in excess of the half-million dollar mark.

Owned by Michael Imperio, Medallion Racing, Sofia Soares, Vincent Scuderi and Parkland Thoroughbreds, Bella Sofia was purchased for $20,000 at the 2020 Ocala Breeders' Sale Company July Two Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale.

Rodriguez enjoyed a productive riding career, professionally from 1992-2011 on the New York circuit before turning to training. He holds 11 training titles in New York.

What is the Breeders Cup' Filly & Mare Sprint?

The Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint is a 7-furlong (1408 m) Weight for Age stakes race for thoroughbred fillies and mares three years old and up. As its name implies, it is a part of the Breeders' Cup thoroughbred championships, the de facto year-end championship for North American thoroughbred racing, generally held in the United States (also held one time in Canada). The race is run on a dirt course (either natural dirt or a synthetic surface such as Polytrack).

The race was run for the first time in 2007 during the first day of the expanded Breeders' Cup at that year's host track, Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport, New Jersey. Beginning in 2009, this race is a Grade I event.

The 2007 race was held at a distance of 6 furlongs (1207 m) instead of the normal distance of 7 furlongs because of the configuration of the dirt track at Monmouth Park.

2024 BREEDERS' CUP RACE SCHEDULE

• Springboard Mile at Remington Park - Dec 13
• G2 Los Alamitos Futurity Entries - Dec 14
• Bet Aqueduct Racetrack | Nov 7 - Dec 29
• Bet Santa Anita Park | Dec 26 - Apr 6
• Bet Tampa Bay Downs | Nov 20 - May 3

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