Catch a Glimpse the underdog in Jenny Wiley
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Mark Casse won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes last year with one superstar turf mare – and he’ll be trying to deny another one Saturday.
Casse won the 2016 Jenny Wiley with Tepin and now will send out Catch a Glimpse to try to upset Lady Eli, who figures as an odds-on favorite in the 29th running of the $350,000 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.
“It looks like she’s back to her old self,” Casse said of Catch a Glimpse, a 4-year-old filly who won the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf amid an eight-race win streak that was followed by losses in her last three starts. “The way she’s trained, we’re looking for a big race right out of the box.”
Catch a Glimpse, with Florent Geroux to ride, will break from post 3 as the logical front-runner in a field of eight fillies and mares in the 1 1/16-mile Jenny Wiley.
Lady Eli, with Irad Ortiz Jr. in from New York, was assigned the rail post for Chad Brown, who won the 2015 Jenny Wiley with Ball Dancing. A winner in seven of nine starts, Lady Eli, 5, has been a standout since the fall of her 2-year-old season.
From the hedge, this is the Jenny Wiley field: Lady Eli, Goodyearforroses, Catch a Glimpse, Dickinson, Kitten’s Roar, Time and Motion, Illuminant, and Quidura.
The Jenny Wiley, the 10th of 11 Saturday races, is the last of four legs in an all-stakes pick-four wager. In the three preceding stakes:
◗ Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington (race 9): A well-matched field of 10 3-year-olds is entered in this 1 1/16-mile race, with Resiliency, No Dozing, and the Bob Baffert-trained West Coast among those likely to draw high interest.
◗ $100,000 Giant’s Causeway (race 8): Lady Aurelia makes her long-awaited 4-year-old debut amid an oversubscribed field of filly-and-mare turf sprinters.
◗ Grade 3, $200,000 Ben Ali (race 7): Graded-stakes winners Eagle and Bird Song look like the top threats in the 1 1/8-mile race, which drew eight older horses.
The Ben Ali normally is run on the second Sunday of the meet, but Keeneland is dark this Sunday because of the Easter holiday. Racing will resume the following Wednesday for the only five-day week of the 15-day spring meet. Closing day is April 28.