DEL MAR, Calif. — Ted Noffey kept his unbeaten record intact with a victory in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile on Friday at Del Mar, completing a flawless 4-for-4 season as a 2-year-old.

The appropriately named colt—named after a misspelling of Spendthrift Farm general manager Ned Toffey—rolled to a one-length win over Mr. A.P. to capture the Grade 1 event, establishing himself as an early favorite for the 2026 Kentucky Derby.

Ridden by John Velazquez, Ted Noffey ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.25 and paid $3.60 to win, the second-shortest payout in Juvenile history. The 4-5 favorite's victory was never seriously in doubt, though jockey Johnny Velazquez reported that the colt briefly idled just inside the eighth pole when he saw shadows from a building and footprints from the gate crew.

For the legendary team of trainer Todd Pletcher and jockey John Velazquez, it was their 496th stakes win together over 29 years, and it provided Pletcher with his fifth Juvenile winner. Pletcher tied his late mentor D. Wayne Lukas, who died in June at age 89, for most Juvenile wins by a trainer. The Hall of Famer wore a tie given to him by Lukas' widow in tribute.

"He's as good as any 2-year-old we've had," said Pletcher, the sport's all-time leader in earnings who now has 16 Breeders' Cup wins. "Look at his résumé. To go from the Hopeful to the Breeders' Futurity back to Saratoga and then to the Breeders' Cup on the West Coast, that's pretty hard to beat."

Ted Noffey, a $650,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Spendthrift Farm, became the ninth Breeders' Cup winner and second consecutive Juvenile winner for six-time reigning champion general sire Into Mischief.

The race pitted East Coast champion Ted Noffey against West Coast sensation Brant, a $3 million Gun Runner colt trained by Bob Baffert. Brant set the early pace under Flavien Prat but finished third, with Baffert praising the winner: "The winner just never gave us a breather".

The Juvenile win vaulted Ted Noffey to the top of Churchill Downs' "Road to the Kentucky Derby" leaderboard, though the Juvenile-Derby double has proven elusive—only Street Sense in 2006-07 and Nyquist in 2015-16 have accomplished the feat since the Breeders' Cup's 1984 inception.

Ted Noffey will ship to Pletcher's headquarters at Palm Beach Downs in Florida to begin preparing for his 3-year-old campaign. The colt has now won four races by a combined margin of 13¾ lengths, dominating the 2-year-old division.

"We just feel so blessed to have Ted," said Spendthrift owner Eric Gustavson, "and the two Hall of Famers got all that God-given ability out of him."