KEENELAND SATURDAY
Keeneland’s fall season of racing opens this weekend with three Grade 1s tonight and a further one tomorrow.
Belmont also hosts two Grade 1s and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Sprint Championship rounds out the action on the west coast.
The First Lady, Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity and Shadwell Turf Mile are down for decision tonight. Surprisingly there are no European challengers for the big mile race.
Second last year to Suedois, Heart To Heart heads strong a 14-horse field for $1 million Shadwell Turf Mile, seeking to become the third horse (Miss Temple City (2016) and Wise Dan (2014)) to complete a Keeneland Grade 1 double of the Maker’s 46 Mile and Shadwell Turf Mile in the same year.
Trained by Brian Lynch, the 11-time graded stakes winner comes into the race off a sixth-place finish in the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga in August.
Three other Grade 1 winners: Almanaar, Divisidero and Voodoo Song – make it a tough task for last year’s runner up, with Chad Brown’s Analyze It also boosting two good Grade 1 placings on his last two runs, in the Secretariat and Belmont Derby.
Shadwell’s Almanaar, the Chad Brown-trained winner of last year’s Gulfstream Park Turf, comes off a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Arlington Million. Divisidero, winner of the Grade 1 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs, was fourth in this race last year.
Voodoo Song, winner of the Fourstardave, was only fifth in the Bernard Baruch behind the other Shadwell runner, Qurbaan, in his most recent start.
Trainer Chad Brown has a trio of runners in the field of 10 for the First Lady (9.40pm).
The Brown contingent all ran in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa at Saratoga in August with Quidura, a multiple graded stakes winner, winning by a length and a quarter, with A Raving Beauty was fourth and Off Limits fifth.
A Raving Beauty, by Mastercraftsman, was a winner of the Grade 1 Just a Game in June at Belmont, will be making her Keeneland debut. Off Limits, third in the Jenny Wiley here this spring, won the Grade 1 Matriarch to close her 2017 campaign.
Adding international interest is the presence of two European group winners: Godolphin’s French challenger Crown Walk (Dubawi) and the Ed Walker-trained Indian Blessing.
Trained by Henri-Alex Pantall, Crown Walk finished second in the Prix Rothschild at Deauville in July in her most recent start. Mike Smith rides. Indian Blessing, who was third to Quidura in the Ballston Spa, will be ridden by Feargal Lynch.
The other Grade 1 race is the $500,000 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity for two-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles on the main track, (10.14pm) with a field of 14. Mind Control, winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga in his most recent start, is the top name. Trained by Greg Sacco, he won his maiden at Monmouth prior to his Hopeful victory.
Also coming out of the Hopeful are Todd Pletcher’s Sandford winner Sombeyay (fourth), Mark Casse’s Dream Maker (fifth) and Derby Date.
BELMONT SATURDAY
At Belmont the nine-furlong Beldame Stakes has a closely matched eight-horse field. It looks a re-run of Saratoga’s Grade 3 Shuvee Stakes where Farrell edged Wow Cat by a neck, with Verve’s Tale just a head behind the runner-up. Each filly is seeking her first Grade 1 win.
The two-year-old Grade 1 Champagne Stakes has a 10-horse field with Chad Brown training one of the likely favourites in Complexity. Dual winner Call Paul was impressive in a Grade 2 at Saratoga and Godolphin’s maiden winner Endorsed is the other fancied runner.
KEENELAND SUNDAY
Eskimo Kisses, the six and a half-length runaway winner of the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga, and multiple graded stakes winner Blue Prize headline a field of 11 fillies and mares for the $500,000 Grade 1 Juddmonte Spinster going nine furlongs on dirt.
Eskimo Kisses defeated multiple Grade 1 winner Midnight Bisou as well as graded stakes winners Talk Veuve to Me and She’s a Julie in that Alabama success. Jose Ortiz has the call again.
Blue Prize was third in the Juddmonte Spinster last year and comes on a two-race graded-win run.
Chocolate Martini, Sassy Sienna, Skeptic and Talk Veuve To Me are graded stakes winners.
SANTA ANITA SUNDAY
The five-runner Santa Anita Sprint Championship is a two-horse race between Roy H, Pete Miller’s winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and dual Grade 1 winner Ransom The Moon who beat Miller’s horse by over two lengths in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar last time. It’s two-two in their match-ups and another thriller is on the cards.