BY BROCK SHERIDAN
Zedan Racing Stables’ Nooni has been added to the list of contenders for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (Grade 1). She joins R Disaster among Florida-breds listed by the Breeders’ Cup website as possible starters in the seven-furlong test.
The Filly and Mare Sprint is one of 14 Grade 1 races with purses and awards totaling more than $34 million as a part of the the 43rd Breeders’ Cup World Championships to be run at Keeneland Race Course on October 30-31.
Trained by Bob Baffert, 4-year-old Nooni has won her last two starts in three races this year, made after 19 months away from the track.
In her first race back on July 4 at Los Alamitos Race Course, Nooni was third, beaten two lengths by winner Sweet Azteca in the six-and-a-half-furlong Great Lady M (G2), earning a career best 83 Beyer Speed Figure.
Sent to Ellis Park for her next race on August 2, Nooni won a $62,500 optional claiming by a length-and-a-half going six furlongs. Then on September 13, she rolled in an upper tier, $100,000 optional claiming at Churchill Downs, winning by nearly five lengths and covering seven furlongs in 1:22.48 on the fast track. She was credited with a 89 Beyer number.
A winner of the Grade 3 Sorrento at Del Mar in her second start in August of 2024, Nooni was next fifth in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante but bounced back to run a good second in the Grade 2 Oak Leaf at Santa Anita in October of that year.
Baffert returned to Del Mar with Nooni for the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies which she lead through six furlongs in 1:10.03 but tired to finish sixth. In the last race of her 2-year-old year, Nooni was fifth in the Grade 2 Starlet at Los Alamitos in December of 2024.
Nooni was a $1.8 million purchase by bloodstock agent Donato Lanni for Zedan to lead the 2024 Ocala Breeders’ Sales March Sale out of the Ocala Stud consignment. She is by Ocala Stud stallion Win Win Win out of Unanimity, by Union Rags and was bred in Florida by Ocala Stud, Joseph M. O’Farrell III and David O’Farrell et al. She has earned $319,324.
Should she make the starting gate for the Filly and Mare Sprint, Nooni would join a list of 60 Florida-breds who have made at least two starts in a Breeders’ Cup race.
She is among six Florida-breds listed as contenders for various Breeders’ Cup races this year, three of which were bred by or in partnership with Ocala Stud.
Robert and Lawana Low’s Liam’s Law, bred by Ocala Stud, is a possible for the $1 million Brown Advisory Breeders’ Cup Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and R Disaster was bred by Ocala Stud and FTBOA Hall of Fame member J. Michael O’Farrell Jr.
Ocala Stud currently ranks third behind Arthur I. Appleton and Live Oak Stud among breeders of Florida-bred Breeders’ Cup starters. Appleton and Live Oak each have bred 15 Florida-bred Breeders’ Cup starters while Ocala Stud, alone or in partnership, has bred 13 Florida-bred Breeders’ Cup starters.
Return to the October 10 issue of Wire to Wire
