Iridessa (IRE)

Trained by Breeders’ Cup-winning jockey Joseph O’Brien and owned Mrs. Chantal Consuelo Regalado-Gonzalez, Iridessa has proven repeatedly over the last 12 months that she is a top-class filly. Winner of the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile to cap her juvenile season, she shook off a slow start to her 3-year-old year—including an eighth in the Group 1 1000 Guineas and fourth in its Irish equivalent—with a powerful win in the Pretty Polly Stakes in her first trip beyond a mile. Bounding clear of Magic Wand in the 10-furlong affair, she established herself as a Breeders’ Cup filly to watch.

After failing to stretch out even farther in the 12-furlong Irish Oaks (G1), when seventh to Star Catcher, she returned to the winner’s enclosure in the one-mile Matron Stakes (G1) at The Curragh before finishing a good third last out over the same trip in Newmarket’s Sun Chariot (G1). At Santa Anita, she will attempt to emulate her grandmother Starine by winning the Filly & Mare Turf. Starine, who won in 2002 at Arlington, only had two foals before dying in 2005 and Iridessa’s mother, Senta’s Dream (by Danehill), was her first.

O’Brien, the son of phenomenal conditioner Aidan, has already made his mark as a dual-purpose trainer in just over three years of being on his own. At just 26, he already has a winner of the Melbourne Cup (G1) in Rekindling and Irish Derby (G1) with Latrobe. He has had two starters in the Breeders’ Cup, including Regalado-Gonzalez’s lone starter, Group 1 winner Intricately, who was 11th in the 2016 Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1). In 2017, pupil Now You’re Talking was eighth in the same race. As a jockey he rode in five Breeders’ Cups with a smart record of four top-four finishes, including a win and third on St Nicholas Abbey in the 2011 and 2012 Turf (G1), a third on Declaration of War in the 2013 Classic (G1) and a fourth with Excelebration in the 2012 Mile (G1).