KEENELAND opened its summer meeting this week and tonight has a feel of a ladies day with three Grade 1 races for fillies as well at the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes, a prep for the Kentucky Derby and where a filly will take on 12 colts.
Chad Brown supplies the short-odds favourite in the Grade 1 Madison Stakes over seven furlongs on dirt. Guarana opened her four-year-old season with a June 4th victory in an allowance race at Churchill Downs.
A daughter of Ghostzapper, Guarana won the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes and Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks on only her second and third starts as a three-year-old last year and was also second in the Grade 1 Cotillion Stakes.
Stonestreet Stables’ Mia Mischief looks her chief danger. She closed out 2019 with a win at Churchill Downs and returned well this season with wins in March and the April 25th Carousel Stakes at Oaklawn Park before a third-place effort in May in the Grade 3 Winning Colors Stakes at Churchill Downs. Mia Mischief won the Grade 1 Humana Distaff Stakes last year.
Another to consider is the winner of the Winning Colors Stakes, Bell’s The One. She won the Grade 2 Lexus Raven Run Stakes here last year.
The mile-and-half-a-furlong Grade 1 Ashland Stakes for three-year-olds also has a short-priced favourite in Venetian Harbor. Richard Baltas’ filly won the Grade 2 Las Virgines at Santa Anita and was second in the Grade 3 Fantasy at Oaklawn last time when she was worn down late by the Blue Grass favourite Swiss Skydiver. Speech was second to that same filly in the Santa Anita Oaks in June and had previously given subsequent runaway Grade 1 Gamine a fright in an allowance race in Oaklawn. Bonny South, Juddmonte’s Munnings filly, won the Grade 2 Fairground Oaks in March.
The Grade 1 Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes on turf, not surprisingly also has a Chad Brown-trained short-priced favourite in Rushing Fall. She won this last year as well as the Grade 1 Just A Game and won on her seasonal debut back in March at Belmont Park.
Blue Grass
In the final graded contest of the day, the filly Swiss Skydiver will take on 12 male rivals in Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes.
The Kenny McPeek-trained filly seeks to become the first female to win the race that was first run at the Lexington track in 1937 and a good run could have connections considering the Kentucky Derby.
The daughter of Daredevil comes off three consecutive clear wins over fillies in graded stakes at three different tracks: the Gulfstream Park Oaks, the Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn and the Santa Anita Oaks.
Mike Smith, who was aboard for the first time in the Santa Anita Oaks, will make the trip to Kentucky. Swiss Skydiver gets 5lb as a filly facing males.
The Steve Asmussen-trained Basin looks the main danger as he chased front-running winner Charlatan to finish second in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and won last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga.
Delaware
The Peter Brant-owned filly Dunbar Road tops the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park.
In her only outing this year, Dunbar Road, trained by Chad Brown, won the Shawnee Stakes at Churchill Downs. Last year, the four-year-old daughter of Quality Road won two Grade 1s in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park and the Alabama Stakes at Saratoga before finishing third in the Grade 1 Juddmonte Spinster at Keeneland and was fifth in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff in November at Santa Anita.