LEXINGTON, Ky. – Could it get any better? The Friday opener of the Keeneland spring meet is racing at its finest, with three stakes anchoring a 10-race card rounded out by four allowances and three maiden-specials.

Six-figure purses, including sizable bonuses for Kentucky-breds, are the rule, with an $80,000 maiden race for 2-year-olds being the lone exception. The feature is the Grade 1, $600,000 Ashland Stakes, a key Kentucky Oaks prep headed by Wonder Wheel, the reigning champion among the current crop of 3-year-old fillies.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Ashland Stakes is an obvious means to an end, and yet it stands proudly on its own merits. Among the last five Ashland winners were Monomoy Girl (2018), Malathaat (2021), and Nest (2022), all of them champions.

“This race is meant to bring her into the Kentucky Oaks in perfect shape,” said Mark Casse, the Hall of Fame trainer who will run D. J. Stable’s 2-year-old filly champion of 2022, Wonder Wheel, in the Grade 1, $600,000 Ashland on the Friday opener to the Keeneland spring meet. “That said, the Ashland is a great race in its own right.”

WHO’S HOT

Evangeline Downs in Opelousas, La., will open a 61-date meet Friday night with a stakes double, turf racing, and large fields. The season will run through Aug. 12.

Majestic Ways will be going for her fifth straight win when she makes her Evangeline debut in the $60,000 Spotted Horse. The one-mile race is for fillies and mares. Majestic Ways began her streak in October with a first-level allowance win at Remington Park and added three more allowance victories during the Delta Downs meet.

Lane Luzzi has the mount from post 3 for trainer Jayde Gelner.

On the one-year anniversary of relocating to California, jockey Ramon Vazquez finds himself in an enviable position Saturday – riding favorite Practical Move in the Grade 1 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby and Grade 1-winning filly And Tell Me Nolies in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks.

Vazquez, 37, moved from Oaklawn Park to Santa Anita and began riding regularly in California on April 8, 2022. Top local jockeys Flavien Prat and Umberto Rispoli had announced plans to relocate; the timing was right for a West Coast move by Vazquez, whose agent is Bill Castle.

Best birthday gift ever? The 2021 yearling that Jim Bernhard purchased for Dana Bernhard ranks near the top. “My wife always gives me great birthday presents . . . the first Thoroughbred I decided to buy was a horse for her birthday at the July sale,” Bernhard recalled this week.

Reincarnate, third in last Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Arkansas Derby, remains pointed to the Kentucky Derby, Tom Ryan, managing partner of SF Racing, part-owner of the colt, said this week.

Ryan said he was “proud” of Reincarnate’s effort and suggested a weather-interrupted training schedule in California may have hampered him some. Ryan said the horse has returned to trainer Tim Yakteen’s California stable and has emerged from the race in good order.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – With the Championship meet in the rearview mirror, and with it the majority of the big-name stables and riders who have campaigned locally for the past three months gone elsewhere, racing on the local circuit will settle in for the long spring-summer campaign, which begins Thursday at Gulfstream Park with the opening of the Royal Palm Meet.

Jareth Loveberry, leading rider during 2020 and 2021 at Arlington and leading rider during Hawthorne’s spring meet in 2022, has moved his tack to Kentucky. Loveberry confirmed he’ll be taking mounts at the upcoming Keeneland meet and plans to go on to Churchill Downs.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Bought for $1.75 million as a 2-year-old last April, Ultimate Gamble won his 3-year-old debut in a maiden race at a mile at Santa Anita on Saturday. While Ultimate Gamble will not be part of the Kentucky Derby, the colt could develop into a stakes runner by summertime.