Candied has been just dandy thus far for Pletcher

With her 1-length victory in the Alcibiades (G1) on Oct. 6, Candied started Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners on its way to a historic double in Keeneland’s Grade 1 races for 2-year-olds. Some 24 hours later, Eclipse and Walmac Farm’s Locked completed the sweep in the Breeders’ Futurity (G1).

Candied, who drew the rail in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) Friday, is unbeaten in two starts for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. She debuted with a three-quarters of a length victory going 6 furlongs at Saratoga on Aug. 20 at 5-1. She showed that she could prevail around two turns in the Keeneland score at 4-1 despite not switching leads.

“I thought it was super-impressive,” Pletcher said. “It’s not only a lot to do for any horse, but when you factor in that she was running against some really seasoned fillies that had multiple starts like Brightwork and (Kenny) McPeek’s filly, V V’s Dream. Those fillies had quite a bit of an experience edge on Candied. For her to stretch out from six furlongs and go to a mile and a sixteenth against those fillies in only her second start that was a tall order, and she delivered an impressive performance.”

Aron Wellman said Eclipse’s VP for Bloodstock Sean Tugel deserves credit for short-listing Candied at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton July sale.

“He spotted her on the sales grounds and was immediately enamored by her,” Wellman said. “Throughout the week she jumped through all his hoops and he was sending me videos and updates on her as we went through our process. We decided we were going to take a swing at her and were very pleased to land her at the price we did, $165,000. That’s not a little amount of money by any stretch of the imagination, but in the grand scheme of the marketplace, relatively speaking, it was a very good value, especially for a daughter of Candy Ride with a little bit of pedigree underneath her as well.”

Wellman said that Candied is not yet as professional as Locked.

“Candied is a filly that’s given us fits actually ever since she was broken and trained, particularly as it relates to her lead changes,” he said. “She just is very stubborn about her lead changes. And if you watch her two races she hasn’t switched leads in either of them in the stretch. She stayed on her left lead all throughout her races. So that is a cause for concern because at some point, she’s going to run into somebody that’s just better than her that she’s going to have to pull out more. And if she’s not quite as polished as she needs to be at the elite level, it could come back to make the difference.”

Wellman said it is tough to make a horse do something it doesn’t want to do, especially when it is running fast and winning.

“She’s just a very gifted filly. There’s no telling where her ceiling might be,” he said. “Love the fact that we got a battle-tested two-turn race into her before the Breeders’ Cup. I think that’s one advantage she has over the bulk of her competition. We’ll see what happens on Friday. She’s an exciting filly and there’s no telling how good she might be.”