California-based Turbulent Descent will go off the likely favorite in the Nov. 4 Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (gr. I), but the Golden State will also be providing a major threat to that one in the ultra-consistent Switch, who finished second in the race a year ago at odds of nearly 8-1.
Switch, who is owned by C R K Stable and was bred by Calumet Farm, was originally scheduled to be sold at a breeding stock sale immediately after the Breeders’ Cup. Happily for race fans, she has been scratched from the sale and trainer John Sadler said she is now slated to return to the races next year as a 5-year-old.
Consider this: Switch has raced 17 times in her career. After breaking her maiden at first asking at 2, the daughter of Quiet American has run in 16 consecutive stakes races, 15 of those graded, and nine of them grade I. She is a multiple grade I winner, but perhaps is best known for the close second she ran to Zenyatta in the October 2010 Ladies Secret (gr. I), in which the eventual Horse of the Year caught her late to prevail by a half length.
“She showed a lot of ability as soon as we got her as a 2-year-old,” Sadler said. “She had a lot of run.”
David Ingordo, who famously selected Zenyatta at auction, also bought Switch.
“She was a big, attractive, scopey filly with a beautiful shoulder,” Ingordo said of Swtich as a yearling. “She’s an A++ physical. Her mother, Antoinette, could really run, and Quiet American was the best horse she’d been bred to, so it all added up the right way to me.”
Sadler likes Switch so much he purchased her half sister by Pleasantly Perfect as a yearling this year.
Switch has certainly danced all the dances. Besides the runner-up to Zenyatta, Switch ran second to both Havre de Grace and Blind Luck, certainly the two top-rated fillies in North America, this season.
Most recently she ran third in the Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes (gr. II) at Keeneland Oct. 8, starting from the outside gate at six furlongs.
“We knew it was too short for her, but she actually ran a better Ragozin number than the two who ran in front of her because of the weight she carried and the extra distance she had to run from that post,” said Sadler. “It was a good prep for her. We know seven furlongs is a good distance for her, we know she likes the track, and she stayed here in Kentucky after the Keeneland race to climatize.”