Filly Enable in Pursuit of Historic Double

The asymmetrical white blaze that accentuates the filly's bay face was the first thing to emerge from the morning darkness on the Churchill Downs backstretch Oct. 29. Seconds later, as her blue-polo-wrapped legs sauntered by to put her purple saddle towel in plain view, the block letters that spelled out her name confirmed to straining eyes that they were, indeed, in the presence of the horse widely hailed as the best in the world.

There are so many logical reasons Enable could have remained at trainer John Gosden's Newmarket yard in the weeks that followed her second—and most remarkable—Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1) score. Her year has already been one her champion conditioner called "a nightmare" to overcome, a knee injury that limited her to a single prep race in September, a fever that arose after that to further put her Arc defense in jeopardy.

Her résumé needs nothing in the way of additional polishing and, frankly, the Juddmonte Farms homebred has far more to lose should her expected start in the Nov. 3 Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) go awry than she would gain if she lives up to her billing and departs with a seventh top-level win. But when you have a rare one like her, so willing and capable of doing the improbable, it would do her legacy a disservice not give her every chance to further expand upon that greatness.

"Of course you can't do this without the goods, and she is certainly the goods," said Lord Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager for Prince Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms. "She loves to race. She loves to train, she enjoys it. You can just see it in her attitude."

Already the queen of her regal barn, already a star on a global scale, Enable will now take aim at a barrier that has endured throughout the Breeders' Cup's 35-year history when she attempts to become the first Arc winner to win the Turf in the same season. Though only seven have tried the double over the years—including fellow Gosden-trainee Golden Horn, whose defeat in the 2015 Turf was only his second loss—trying to compare Enable to those before her is somewhat a case of apples to oranges due to the unplanned set of circumstances that didn't allow her 4-year-old season to begin until September.

In the annals of all-time conditioning feats, Gosden's work in getting Enable to repeat in Europe's most prestigious race with her fitness far from its peak is one that deserves immortalization. The world-class form that carried her to five group 1 wins from seven starts during her sophomore campaign had to lean hard on its foundation as she recovered from her leg injury. Once Gosden had her ready to return in the September Stakes (G3) over the all-weather course at Kempton Sept. 8, a strong reminder was given that the 1 1/2-miles test was a jump off toward the bigger objective at Longchamp the follow month.

While excuses were at the ready, Enable shunned such leeway during her 3 1/2 length triumph in her first outing since taking the 2017 Arc the previous October. Twenty-nine days later with the best on her heels, the daughter of Nathaniel held off fellow star distaffer Sea of Class by a neck in the Arc in a display of freak ability.

"To bring a horse back to the Arc with the benefit of just one training run was a storied training performance by John and his team," Grimthorpe said. "I think the beauty of having top-class trainers is they bring this tremendous experience of when to press the button and when not to press the button and all the tiny little details that go into the preparation. And everything has got to go pretty well right before hand."

Said Gosden after Enable's Arc triumph, "It's like being a football manager with someone who goes out there and gives you 100% and you can build a team around them. She's one of those."

Given the abbreviated nature of her season and the fact the Arc likely served to sharpen Enable's stamina, the decision to put Louisville on the filly's travel schedule was one Grimthorpe said wasn't all that challenging. The sporting nature of the Juddmonte operation has been well-documented during its decades of campaigning a miles-long list of champions.

And what good is it to spend years cultivating quintessential ability only to keep it bottled up in one corner of the world?

"It is first and foremost an unbelievable privilege," Grimthorpe said. "Prince Khalid loves to race top-class horses and loves to test top-class horses as well. I think to have the very good horses, as someone said, its 30 or 40 years to become an overnight success. That really is the breeding game ... and to see it realized in the likes of (unbeaten champion and sire) Frankel, and Enable has been really unreal.

"They are rare, they are incredibly rare. And it's also so vital for the racing fans to have continuance, if you can, of great racehorses because that's what brings them to the races."

It's a challenge Enable and her team didn't have to take on. Her reputation stands her among the greatest ever to carry Prince Khalid's silks and the foals she will one day carry will house a level of aptitude beyond reproach. 

The question of whether she might return for a 5-year-old campaign won't have a definitive answer until she completes her 12-furlong run around the Churchill Downs course Saturday. For the time being, however, her team is content to be in the moment, savoring her greatness and the opportunity to share it.

"I think the most important thing is we're concentrating on the Breeders' Cup Turf. Everything that we're thinking about goes into that," Grimthorpe said. "As far as next year goes, given what we've had and what we've gone through before, I think, whatever she does on Saturday, we will take our time and evaluate.

"She's the queen of Juddmonte at the moment and so I don't think Prince Khalid would like to make any precipitous decisions until he had all the facts in front of him. It's obviously a wonderful option, but I think we have to get through this."