In The Money Telegraph
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 · By ITM Staff
Reading the Juvenile Weekend Through the Data
Labor Day weekend flooded the calendar with two-year-old stakes, and with the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies at Keeneland now firmly in view, PTF sat down with Adam Mills of Total Performance Data to look past the finishing positions and into the stride-and-sectional numbers — the stuff that hints at who actually improves from here.
Two names jumped off Mills’ screens. On the filly side, Summer Starlet’s win in Saratoga’s Grade 1 Spinaway drew a “wow” — by the data, one of the fastest runnings of that race in a quarter-century, and the kind of relaxed, long-striding effort that projects to route beautifully. And among the colts, a name from a mere maiden race set off alarms: USS Valor posted a figure at Saratoga that dwarfed the stakes winners around him. Mills is careful — it was a maiden, and he wants to see it again in a trial — but on the numbers, both he and PTF landed on USS Valor and Summer Starlet as early Breeders’ Cup Juvenile players. It’s a terrific, wonky watch. See below.
A Weekend for the Shippers and the Longshots
Kentucky Downs’ blockbuster Saturday belonged to the raiders and the outsiders. In the $2 million Kentucky Turf Cup, a “Win and You’re In’’ to the Breeders’ Cup Turf, the lone mare in the field, Sir Mark Prescott’s Tiffany, shipped over from a German Group 1 and beat the boys at 7-1 — heading a European trifecta ahead of reigning Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Ethical Diamond, while the favored Burnham Square never fired and faded to seventh. PTF and JK had flagged Tiffany as a live one on their preview show. In the $3 million Nashville Derby, the chaos went further still: it was not Aidan O’Brien’s ballyhooed favorite Causeway who took the richest three-year-old turf prize in the country, but the 20-1 American longshot Royal Causeway, a Dallas Stewart trainee who didn’t even break his maiden until his ninth start.
Saratoga closed its long summer on Labor Day, and its juveniles stole the final weekend — Summer Starlet in the Spinaway and the unbeaten The Good Life, wire to wire under meet-leading rider Manny Franco, in the Grade 1 Hopeful. Out west, Bob Baffert swept the Del Mar juvenile features, with Miss Monica taking the Debutante and Hughes the Futurity. And at Colonial Downs’ Old Dominion Day finale on Monday, Lennox the Grey outbattled The Big Con — the Miguel Clement runner ITM’s Michael Domabyl had made his top pick — in a photo finish for the Grade 3 Old Dominion Derby.
And the Belt…
Saturday also settled the King of the Turf — the $2,500 grand finale of the Kentucky Downs handicapping challenge, whose winner is named National Turf Handicapping Champion and takes home the championship belt. The full result wasn’t official as of this writing; we’ll have the new King of the Turf once it’s announced.
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The Breeders’ Cup Picture Sharpens
Kentucky Downs wraps this week, the Keeneland September Sale is underway, and the road to the Breeders’ Cup runs on. ITM Plus members get daily written selections, the members’ bet share, exclusive shows, and full coverage all the way to Keeneland.
More all week at inthemoneypodcast.com and on the ITM YouTube channel, with premium coverage on ITM Plus.
