Fresh off a major win over Florida that sent students into the streets of Lexington to celebrate, the University of Kentucky football team hosts LSU on Saturday evening. But there’s another big reason for the Wildcats to be fired up this weekend. Unbeaten stakes winner Averly Jane, who was bred, raised, and prepared for sale by students from the University of Kentucky’s equine program at Maine Chance Farm, is a potential starter in the Indian Summer Stakes on Sunday at Keeneland. The race awards its winner a berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. “Very few of our students who work at Maine Chance actually come from a Thoroughbred background, and many are from out of state,” said Laurie Lawrence, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture. “Before coming to UK, some might not have even known about the Breeders’ Cup. So, whenever one of the horses that they have worked with does well, they get more interested and they learn something about the structure of the industry. The more they understand about what it means to win a black-type stake of any kind, the more they appreciate how special it is to have been involved with a horse like Averly Jane or her dam.” :: BREEDERS’ CUP 2021: See DRF’s special section with top contenders, odds, comments, news, and more for each division Maine Chance raises 20 to 25 foals per year, relying on donated broodmares and stallion seasons. Averly Jane’s dam, Sh Sh Shakin’, was bred and raised at Terry Nickell and trainer Mark Tsagalakis’s Endeavor Farm. Running in the name of M T Racing, the Richter Scale mare went winless in five starts and also had a brief career as a hunter before she was donated to Maine Chance as a broodmare. The mare was kind enough to participate in a behavior and handling class, where students learned basic groundwork skills. “She was a good instructor!” Lawrence said. Sh Sh Shakin’s first two foals, Chattel and Autista, were both winners; Chattel took the 2018 edition of the Skidmore Stakes on the Saratoga turf as a juvenile. The mare delivered Averly Jane, to a donated season from Darley’s Midshipman, in April 2020. “They have all shown good conformation and nice personalities, and in general seem to develop a little later than some others,” Lawrence said of the mare’s foals. “Averly Jane was a nice foal and weanling, but really blossomed in the middle of her yearling year. That was true for the first two foals as well.” Maine Chance’s yearlings are prepared for Fasig-Tipton’s February and October sales in Kentucky, which fit well into the academic calendar. As an April foal, Averly Jane was targeted for the October sale. Students prepared the filly for sale despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the university closing its campus in mid-March 2020, students and staff were divided into teams that worked in shifts at Maine Chance to create social distancing, and activities where multiple people needed to be in close quarters, such as in a stall, were minimized. “There was a period when I wasn’t sure if we would be able to get the students and the horses ready for the sale at all,” Lawrence said. “Fortunately, by the time we needed to be getting serious about prepping the yearlings for October, things were settling down a little bit and most of the students had returned. We were also fortunate that the 2020 yearlings were a sensible bunch. But it was a relief to get everyone to and from the sale safely.” Averly Jane graduated from Maine Chance to the string of Hat Creek Racing and Wesley Ward, for whom she has won all three of her starts – including the Kentucky Juvenile at Churchill Downs during Derby week, and, most recently, an off-the-turf edition of the Skidmore on Aug. 20.