The $650,000 Spinster Stakes (G1), which will be renewed Oct. 4 at Keeneland, is, technically, a prep race toward the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) at the same 1 1/8-mile distance, and this year, at the same track. However, the Spinster has been an important race in its own right toward divisional Eclipse Award titles in recent years, and the streak could well continue here.
The Spinster is a Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In race, offering an automatic, fees-paid berth into the Oct. 31 Distaff at Keeneland. An Eclipse Award champion has emerged from the Spinster each of the past five runnings, two of those pulling the Spinster-Distaff double. The streak started when Letruska won the 2021 Spinster and was voted divisional champion as outstanding older dirt female. Malathaat won both the Spinster and the Distaff to lock up the title in 2022, the most recent year the Breeders' Cup was held at Keeneland. Idiomatic won the Spinster en route to her 2023 Distaff win at Santa Anita Park; she repeated in the 2024 Spinster in what proved her career finale, and was voted a champion both years. Last year, Nitrogen was second in the Spinster in her first try against older foes, and earned the champion 3-year-old filly title after finishing second in the Distaff.
D. J. Stable's homebred Nitrogen, who got her final Breeders' Cup prep by winning the Beldame Stakes (G2) at Belmont Park, is considered the leader in the clubhouse toward a second Eclipse Award title. She owns three graded stakes wins this year, including a runaway performance in the Ogden Phipps Stakes (G1), and posted a gallant runner-up effort to reigning Horse of the Year Sovereignty in the Whitney Stakes (G1).
Other older female runners such as grade 1 winner Fully Subscribed and 2024 Eclipse champion 2-year-old filly Immersive are entered in the Spinster with an eye toward the Distaff, and hoping to knock Nitrogen off the throne. However, standing in their way could be a number of Nitrogen's stablemates from the barn of trainer Mark Casse, who has something of an embarrassment of riches in the Distaff division and could find himself making multiple trips to the podium on Eclipse night.
West Point Thoroughbreds' Counting Stars is already favored to earn the Eclipse Award as outstanding 3-year-old filly, having finished third in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) before winning the Acorn Stakes (G1) and Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), defeating Oaks winner Always a Runner in both, before finishing third in the Alabama Stakes (G1). Second in the Alabama was another Casse-trained filly Measure, who is owned by Gary Barber, Bridlewood Farm, and Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners.
Finishing ahead of Counting Stars in the Alabama "speaks volumes" about Measure, Casse said recently. He considered running her against males in the Pennsylvania Derby (G1) before ultimately going in the sister race, the Cotillion Stakes (G1), in which she finished third.
"It seems like she is getting better and better," the trainer said.
Counting Stars, as Nitrogen did last year, will face older foes for the first time in the Spinster.
"Now it's time to figure out if we have a Breeders' Cup horse this year, or a Breeders' Cup horse for next year," Casse said this week. "We'll see. She's accomplished more than any 3-year-old filly in North America right now. She leads as far as being the Eclipse Award winner. Unless somebody pulls a rabbit out of the hat in the Breeders' Cup."
While Counting Stars is the princess, Nitrogen—who left Casse feeling like a "proud papa" after the Whitney—is still the queen, particularly following what looked like a perfect prep race in the Beldame while not filly cranked, knowing there were bigger targets ahead.
"She has gotten better with age," Casse said at Belmont. "She's an amazing filly when you think about her success on the turf and on the dirt, and beating some of the best colts in the country. She's done it all."
