In bi-coastal blowouts Saturday, Hughes (Into Mischief) asserted himself as the “now” colt within the 2-year-old division while U. S. S. Valor (War of Will) uncorked the type of torque that portends serious potential over longer distances.By Sunday morning, we learned these two 'TDN Rising Stars, presented by Hagyard' won't be squaring off in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.While the Bob Baffert-trained Hughes will head to Keeneland as the horse to beat in the season-capping championship 3 1/2 weeks from now, U. S. S. Valor will instead take a Florida-based break before trainer Shug McGuaghey plots a sophomore campaign that could lead to an eventual tilt between these two in the 2027 GI Kentucky Derby.Hughes, a $675,000 KEESEP yearling owned in partnership by Front Row Club, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Stonestreet Stables, Bashor Racing, Albaugh Family Stables, Robert Masterson, Golconda Stable, Waves Edge Capital and Catherine Donovan, rode a three-race win streak into the six-horse Oct. 3 GI American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita.Trying to add a new dimension to the colt's speed-centric prowess (victories by a combined 18 1/2 lengths in a five-furlong Los Alamitos maiden dash June 26, the six-furlong GIII Best Pal Stakes Aug. 8, and the seven-furlong GI Del Mar Futurity Sept. 6), Baffert made a slight equipment adjustment for Hughes's 3-10 favored start in the 1 1/16-mile American Pharoah, the colt's first try around two turns.“Bob told me that he cut the blinkers, so there was a little less blinker, and to just get him to relax and you can do whatever you want with him,” jockey Juan Hernandez said.Giving Hughes an ultra-confident ride, Hernandez saved ground stalking at the rail in the initial stages behind a dueling duo that set opening quarter-mile splits of :23.37 and :23.49.Edged outside at the 3 1/2-furlong pole, Hughes advanced at will, blowing by one of the spent speedsters three-eighths out and cracking the surviving frontrunner at the quarter pole.Hughes opened up under hand urging through final quarters in :24.36 and :25.36 before coasting home the final sixteenth in :6.64, six lengths in front.Hughes's clocking of 1:43.22 translated to a 100 Beyer Speed Figure, building on his arc of 81-83-84.That triple-digit Beyer wasn't the only sizzling aspect of the Saturday card at Santa Anita.Equibase documented a temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit for the 1 p.m. first race, and the National Weather Service reported a rise to 106 degrees in Arcadia by the time the American Pharoah went off at 4:09 p.m.Jimmy Barnes, Baffert's assistant, reported on Sunday that Hughes seemed fine the day after racing in such stifling heat.“He came out of the race in great shape. Now it's off to the Breeders' Cup,” Barnes said.Toast of New YorkTeam Valor International's homebred U. S. S. Valor, who had administered a 105-Beyer, 13 1/4-length shellacking to a decent seven-furlong maiden field Sept. 5 at Saratoga in his second lifetime start, was backed to .37-1 favoritism for the Oct. 3 one-turn-mile Champagne at Belmont Park.Breaking toward the back for the third straight race, this powerfully built colt nevertheless established a menacing presence, parked near the rear of the tightly packed field of six with jockey Manny Franco content to let sparring pacemakers do the dirty work through opening quarter-mile splits of :23.19 and :22.89.On the front end, the 2.82-1 second choice Gaudreau (Nyquist), who had beaten third-place U. S. S. Valor when they both debuted at Saratoga over 6 1/2 furlongs Aug. 8, fought free from the 36-1 Johnny Hockey (Omaha Beach), but was immediately accosted at the head of the lane by the 12-1 'Rising Star' Club Reign (Core Beliefs).Patiently handled through the far turn and a third-quarter split of :24.10, U. S. S. Valor capably sliced foes at the back, then was forced into “wait mode” approaching the top of the stretch, locked behind the leaders while surrounded by capitulating contenders.In upper stretch, Franco could wait no longer, clearing running room for U. S. S. Valor by having the colt shoulder aside the tiring Earth Song (Justify) and then letting him take dead aim on the leaders from the outside.U. S. S. Valor mowed them down at the eighth pole, blasting off with a purposeful kick punctuated by a long-striding, pendulum-like cadence that propelled him 6 1/4 lengths in front through a closing quarter of :24.66 (two eighths in :12.30 and :12.36).The 1:34.84 final clocking was assigned a 95 Beyer. That's a 10-point drop from U. S. S. Valor's 105 maiden-winning figure, but seven points higher than his third-place debut of 88.Regardless of the numerical quantification, the effort left a very positive impression from a “how he did it” perspective.Explaining the decision to opt out of the Breeders' Cup, Team Valor's principal, Barry Irwin, told TDN's Bill Finley on Sunday, “That's a lot of hard work for a 2-year-old and with not that much spacing between races. We think he's done enough. We want to back off. Shug will take him down to Payson Park and I'm leaving all of the planning for next year and how he does it and when he does it strictly up to Shug.”American History | Coady Media'History' lesson?Off at 5-1 odds, American History (Constitution), another 'Rising Star,' took down the Oct. 3 GI Breeders' Futurity Stakes at Keeneland, running his record to 2-for-2 with an 85 Beyer.His previous score was a 7 3/4-length upset at 9-1 Aug. 22 at Saratoga in a 6 1/2-furlong sprint (73 Beyer).This WinStar Farm, First Go Racing, and CHC, Inc. colorbearer ($825,000 KEESEP) from Todd Pletcher's stable shares a Feb. 23 foaling date with Hughes.But based on both the Beyer differential of 15 points and the visual aspect of American History's better-late-than-never, one-length win in 1:44.88 for 1 1/16 miles, there appears to be a distinct gap between those two colts at this point in the season.Can that change if they meet in the Oct. 30 Juvenile?John Velazquez had to coax American History from the gate in the early stages of the Breeders' Futurity, and the colt never truly had time to settle while being guided to the outside and prompted to work his way out of last in the six-horse field down the backstretch.Two breakaway pacemakers, fellow 'Rising Stars' Coach Pope (Tapit) and Q B Rocket (Gun Runner), threw down brisk opening splits of :23.52 and :23.02, establishing a tempo that seemed ripe for setting up the race for a closer.But Velazquez had to again ask American History to pick up the pace 2 1/2 furlongs out, and even while whittling the favored leaders' margin from seven lengths at the quarter pole to five after turning for home, it didn't look like he would reel in the leaders with Keeneland's short-stretch finish wire (at the sixteenth pole) looming.Velazquez had to administer both right- and left-handed stick work before American History leveled off into his victory-snatching rhythm, which was augmented by Coach Pope and Q B Rocket both shortening stride after a fourth-quarter split of :27.16 and a final sixteenth of :7.20.Keeneland's main track, which in its original iteration decades ago could almost always be counted on to favor early speed, played fairly evenly over the meet's first two afternoons.If anything, it was slanted slightly toward closers Oct 2. and 3.Saturday's dirt races yielded only one wire-to-wire winner, no pace-pressing winners, three midpack stalking winners and three deep-closing winners (1-0-3-3). The dirt profile for the first two days of the meet combined was 4-0-5-5, so it wasn't like American History made his late run against the grain of any sort of speed-favoring bias.Still, American History will carry a win-over-the-track theoretical advantage into the Breeders' Cup. Pletcher confirmed on Sunday the colt would remain at Keeneland to target the Juvenile.Keeneland has hosted the Breeders' Cup three times (2022, 2020, 2015), and the last two times the Breeders' Futurity winner also captured the Juvenile over the same track.Forte did it in 2022 and so did Essential Quality in 2020. In 2015, Brody's Cause won the Breeders' Futurity and then was third behind eventual champion Nyquist in the Juvenile.The post Week in Review: Hughes is ‘Now” Colt, but Matchup With U.S.S. Valor Could End Up Worth a Long Wait appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.