KEENELAND hosted a full card of graded races last Saturday featuring three Grade 1s for fillies and mares and a Kentucky Derby trial, the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes, which also had a filly as favourite.
Chad Brown supplied two short-priced favourites and they duly obliged, with the Madison Stakes winner Guarana, giving the trainer the 100th Grade 1 in his career.
The seven-furlong contest proved one of the most exciting as Guarana had to fight to justify her short odds. The daughter of Ghostzapper led early but looked in trouble by the turn for home as Mia Mischief, herself a Grade 1 winner, ranged up and took the advantage heading up the final stretch.
Mia Mischief had a half-length lead with a furlong remaining but on her inside, Guarana was not giving in and she surged back past Mia Mischief in the closing 70 yards.
“When I hit her left-handed, she responded beautiful and she came back. She just kept coming back and coming back. I’m glad we put her head in front at the end,” said her rider Jose Ortiz.
The four-year-old clocked 1m 21.70secs, the fastest of 11 runnings of the race on dirt. Chad Brown said afterwards: “It’s a whole body of work from 12 and a half years of training. It has to do with my team of co-workers, owners, and horses both present and past. They all contributed to the 100 Grade 1s.”
Guarana won the Grade 1s, the Acorn and the Coaching Club American Oaks last season. The Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint could be a target for both fillies.
Brown added his second Grade 1 of the evening when Rushing Fall followed up her win last year with a second success in the Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes
The five-year-old daughter of More Than Ready set a course and stakes records when she completed mile and half a furlong in 1m 39.02secs on firm turf under Javier Castellano who rode two Grade 1 winners on the day.
She is one of few mares in recent decades, along with Lady Eli and Beholder, to win a Grade 1 at two, three, four and now five. She also joins Intercontinental (2004-05) as a dual winner of the Jenny Wiley, adding to her wins in the 2017 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar at two, the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Keeneland at three and the 2019 Just a Game Stakes at Belmont Park along with her two wins in this race.
Rushing Fall tracked the pacesetter Jolie Olimpica and took over through a 1m33.02sec mile, winning by three-quarters of a length.
“Today it worked out great. I could keep track of the front runner. The way she did it is amazing. She’s a really nice filly,” Castellano said.
Ashland Stakes
The other Grade 1 was the Ashland Stakes for three-year-olds and it provided a bit of a surprise when Speech and Javier Castellano proved too good for the short-priced favourite Venetian Harbor.
Michael McCarthy’s filly raced to a three-length victory in track-record time for her first graded stakes victory. She had four second-place finishes in her four starts since breaking her maiden in December.
Michael McCarthy had changed in plans after trainer Ken McPeek opted to bypass the Ashland and run Swiss Skydiver in the Blue Grass Stakes later on the card. The Ashland offered 100 points to the winner toward a spot in the Kentucky Oaks, and Speech now has her ticket to Churchill Downs.
“Now that we’re qualified for the Oaks, we’ll do what’s best for the horse in terms of getting there,” Eclipse Thoroughbreds president Aron Wellman said. “She’s been knocking on the door and arguably ran into the three best fillies of the generation in her last three starts.”
Speech has also run Gamine close in Oaklawn.
She pressed the pace set by Venetian Harbor and then powered past her in the stretch. On the fast track, Speech crossed the line in 1m 41.26 for the mile and half a furlong, breaking the track record set by the older Seeking The Soul in 2017.