Whitney, Fourstardave to Leave Mark at Breeders' Cup

With the Aug. 8 Fourstardave Stakes (G1T) and Whitney Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In, the connections of the respective winners will secure paid, automatic berths into Breeders' Cup races Oct. 31 at Keeneland. But they will know they hold more than guaranteed entries. They'll also head there knowing many past winners have proven to be Breeders' Cup victors. Triumphant graduates of these two races have fared well at the Breeders' Cup through the years. Seven Whitney winners have gone on to capture the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), most recently in 2023 when White Abarrio completed the Whitney-Classic double for then-trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. Six Fourstardave winners have also captured the Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T) in the same season, with Wise Dan accomplishing the feat in both 2012 and 2013 during his two Horse of the Year campaigns. The Whitney nearly produced an eighth Breeders' Cup Classic winner last year, but Sierra Leone's late rally fell a half-length short of Japanese star Forever Young (JPN) in a runner-up finish at Del Mar. Sierra Leone took the Classic the previous year as a 3-year-old when he was third in the Travers Stakes (G1) late in the summer. Seven-year-old White Abarrio, now trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. for C Two Racing Stable, Gary Barber, and La Milagrosa Stable, returns for one final Whitney before retiring to stud next year at Gainesway in Central Kentucky. Coming off a fourth-place finish in the Stephen Foster Stakes (G1) over a sloppy Churchill Downs surface and facing the same three horses who finished ahead of him there, he is 8-1 on the morning line for Saturday's 1 1/8-mile dirt test. Stephen Foster winner Magnitude is the 9-5 favorite, with runner-up Baeza at 7-2 odds and third-place finisher Sovereignty, the reigning Horse of the Year, at 3-1. Last year's champion 3-year-old filly Nitrogen, a resounding winner of the June 5 Ogden Phipps Stakes (G1), is 4-1 in a bid to defeat males. D. J. Stable's Nitrogen, trained by Mark Casse, seeks to join Black Maria (1928), Bateau (1929), Esposa (1937), Gallorette (1948), Lady's Secret (1986), and Personal Ensign (1988) as female Whitney winners. She is also set to become just the third filly to contest the Whitney since Personal Ensign, following Serena's Song, runner-up in 1996, and Swiss Skydiver, fourth in 2021. With Jose Ortiz remaining aboard Magnitude, Hall of Famer John Velazquez takes over on Nitrogen, who carries 121 pounds and receives a 5-pound weight allowance from her leading male rivals. Winchell Thoroughbreds' Magnitude, breaking from the rail, appears likely to dictate the pace much as the Steve Asmussen trainee did in the Stephen Foster under Ortiz's aggressive handling. Those front-running tactics produced a 1 1/4-length victory over Baeza who, for the second consecutive race, was compromised by a poor start. Bill Mott, selected by C R K Stable and Grandview Equine to train the colt following the death of trainer John Shirreffs this year, hopes quarter pads on each side of Baeza in the starting gate will help correct the grade 1 winner's slow-breaking tendencies. According to Mott, Baeza stood well and appeared comfortable in the gate while schooling with the equipment change. "We just have to hope he comes out. They've got to react when the gate opens," Mott told New York Racing Association publicity. "We've done a few things, and the main thing is we hope he stands up there good. He seems to be focused now, and we just need to see him break." For Godolphin's Sovereignty, also trained by Mott, the Whitney shapes up as a revealing test because it seemingly comes without excuses. After displaying brilliance in 2025 as a 3-year-old, he has lost both starts this year at age 4, beginning with a runner-up finish to White Abarrio in the April 18 Oaklawn Handicap (G2) followed by a lengthy layoff and a change in running style. Next, he was a distant third in the Stephen Foster, coming over a sloppy track, although he previously handled similar track conditions in winning the 2025 Kentucky Derby (G1). Sovereignty dropped well back on the backstretch in the June 27 Stephen Foster before advancing on the second turn under Junior Alvarado's urging, only to flatten out and finish 5 1/4 lengths behind. "Sovereignty, his two races, one of them was pretty good, the other one was disappointing, but that's the only disappointing race he's ever run in his life," Mott said. The Into Mischief colt was spectacular at his Saratoga base last summer, stringing together victories in the Belmont Stakes (G1), Jim Dandy Stakes (G2), and Travers Stakes (G1). Superior to both Baeza and Magnitude last spring and summer, he never had the opportunity to race later in the season after illness forced his scratch from the 2025 Breeders' Cup Classic. The Whitney, the 12th race on a stacked Saratoga program, has a scheduled post time of 6:33 p.m. ET, two races after the Fourstardave, carded as the 10th at 5:14 p.m. Both races will be televised nationally on FOX from 5-7 p.m. Another Casse Filly Tests Males in Fourstardave Like the Whitney, the Fourstardave features a Casse-trained filly taking on males, this time Classic Q for Gary Barber, Blue Crevalle Racing, and Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. Casse has won the Fourstardave three times, first with subsequent Breeders' Cup Mile winner World Approval in 2017 and later with the female Got Stormy in 2019 and 2021. She also finished second in the 2020 Fourstardave. Classic Q, projected at 8-1 odds, is at her best over a mile on turf, the Fourstardave distance. She wired the June 6 Just a Game Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga against fellow fillies and mares and previously succeeded after pressing the pace in the May 2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile Stakes (G2T) at Churchill Downs. The 4-year-old gray or roan daughter of Classic Empire must topple a pair of males riding five-race winning streaks in Deterministic and Lagynos. Deterministic (2-1), winner of the June 6 Manhattan Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga in his latest, is the defending Fourstardave champion, while Lagynos (5-1) has compiled consecutive stakes victories in Kentucky and Louisiana. Along with Classic Q and Deterministic, fellow grade 1 winners Rhetorical and Zulu Kingdom (IRE) add further class to the seven-horse Fourstardave field.