Baffert-trained Beautiful Gift among 10 in Black-Eyed Susan

While Pimlico management and officials with the track’s parent company, 1/ST, were still deciding Monday afternoon whether to allow embattled trainer Bob Baffert to run horses at Pimlico this week, including Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit in Saturday’s Preakness, racing officials did draw Friday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan with the Baffert-trained Beautiful Gift in the 10-horse field.

On Sunday, Baffert announced that Medina Spirit had tested positive for an overage of betamethasone, a legal corticosteroid not permitted to be in a horse’s system on raceday. Shortly thereafter, Churchill Downs announced it would not accept any entries from Baffert until the issue is resolved, leaving other tracks scrambling on how to handle his entries.

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After a one-day delay in taking entries, “we were told to go ahead and draw Friday’s card,” racing secretary Jillian Tullock said Monday afternoon.

Beautiful Gift, a daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, won the Santa Ysabel Stakes at Santa Anita in March before running second to Soothsay in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks on April 3. Baffert held her out of the April 30 Kentucky Oaks, though following an April 28 workout at Churchill Downs, he said he wished he hadn’t.

Listed stakes winners Adventuring (Bourbonette Oaks), The Grass Is Blue (Busanda), and Miss Leslie (Weber City Miss and Anne Arundel County) also were entered in the Black-Eyed Susan. Army Wife, Spritz, Willful Woman, Forever Boss, Iced Latte, and Lady Traveler complete the field.

Harpers First Ride returns

Harpers First Ride will make a bid to win the Grade 3, $250,000 Pimlico Special for a second straight year when he faces 10 rivals in Friday’s 51st renewal of the 1 3/16-mile race for 3-year-olds and up.

Trained by Claudio Gonzalez last year, Harpers First Ride has made his last two starts for trainer Robertino Diodoro. In those starts, Harpers First Ride ran fourth in the Essex Handicap and third in an allowance race.

Fearless, second to Silver State in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap, could go favored in the Pimlico Special for trainer Todd Pletcher.

Modernist, the Grade 3 Excelsior Handicap winner in April, will look to give Bill Mott his second Pimlico Special, his first coming in 1995 with Cigar.

Last Judgment, who beat Modernist in the Grade 3 Challenger Stakes at Tampa, and Treasure Trove, fifth, beaten less than a length in the Grade 3 Ben Ali at Keeneland, both go out for trainer Mike Maker.

Max Player, Enforceable, Alwaysmining, Cordmaker, Prioritize and Forewarned complete the field.

In other Friday stakes:

◗ Horologist, who made a successful 5-year-old debut in the Top Flight Invitational, and Spice Is Nice, a good-looking allowance winner at Keeneland last month, head a field of eight entered in the Grade 3, $150,000 Allaire duPont Distaff.

◗ Street Lute, a locally based runner who has won six stakes, will tackle her most challenging assignment to date in the Grade 3, $150,000 Miss Preakness Stakes for 3-year-old fillies going six furlongs. In a field of nine, Street Lute will take on Purple Mountain Stakes winner Abrogate; recent allowance winners Paradise Song and Inject; and Prodigy Doll, a last-out stakes winner at Mahoning Valley.

◗ Alda and Seasons, second and third in the Grade 1 Natalma at Woodbine last fall, are part of a full field entered in the $100,000 Hilltop Stakes for 3-year-old filles going a mile on turf. Seasons, by Tapit out of the Grade 1-winning mare Winter Memories, was a debut winner last summer at Saratoga for trainer Jimmy Toner. After her third in the Natalma she was put away for the season.

◗ Dixieincandyland and Catch a Bid, separated by a head in a high-class turf allowance sprint at Keeneland, are among a bevy of contenders in the $100,000 The Very One Stakes going five furlongs on turf.

◗ First post for Friday’s 14-race card is 11:30 a.m.