Daddys Lil Darling looks to make the grade in Mrs. Revere

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Daddys Lil Darling is one of the most successful runners of 2017 to have gone winless in graded stakes this year – a surprising blemish perhaps ready to come to an end when she starts as a prohibitive favorite in Friday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Mrs. Revere Stakes at Churchill Downs.

Daddys Lil Darling’s failure to win a graded stakes this year is not for lack of effort. She has been facing elite company. Five of her seven races in 2017 have come against Grade 1 competition, and she ran third in a trio of those races, including in the Kentucky Oaks and Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.

The Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, run last month at Keeneland, was her fastest race from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint and likely the best race of her career. She finished a half-length behind the winner, La Coronel, in a cast that included most of the premier 3-year-old turf fillies in the country.

Friday’s Mrs. Revere, for 3-year-old fillies going 1 1/16 miles on the grass, doesn’t have the same top-to-bottom quality as the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, though it is no gimme for Daddys Lil Darling. It includes the top four finishers from the Grade 3 Valley View at Keeneland, led by victorious Lovely Bernadette, plus some up-and-coming allowance types.

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But Daddys Lil Darling is the class on the grass, being the only horse in the field to have placed in a Grade 1 race and also the richest of 11 entrants with earnings of $935,405.

“I’m hoping she can punch her ticket for over a million dollars,” said Kenny McPeek, who trains her for owner-breeder Nancy Polk of Normandy Farm.

Robby Albarado, aboard for her runner-up finish in the QE II, returns in the irons aboard Daddys Lil Darling, the 7-5 morning-line choice. She has recorded a pair of bullet works at Keeneland leading up to the Mrs. Revere.

Lovely Bernadette, the 4-1 second favorite on the morning line, has something Daddys Lil Darling does not – experience over the Churchill Downs course. After a couple of poor races on dirt in the spring, she was moved to the Churchill grass June 8 and defeated older females in a third-level allowance. Lovely Bernadette followed that victory with thirds in two turf stakes and then two straight stakes wins on turf.

KEY CONTENDERS

Daddys Lil Darling, by Scat Daddy

Last 3 Beyers: 100-92-73

◗ She took the Dueling Ground Oaks at Kentucky Downs in stakes-record time Sept. 10 in her race before the QE II.

Lovely Bernadette, by Wilburn

Last 3 Beyers: 92-89-84

◗ Her stakes victories leading into the Mrs. Revere both came when ridden by Florent Geroux, who returns in the irons Friday.

I’m Betty G, by Into Mischief

Last 3 Beyers: 89-86-86

◗ Cross-entered in Thursday’s $150,000 Winter Memories at Aqueduct, she will scratch from that race and go in the Mrs. Revere, trainer Mike Maker said. She races with blinkers off for the first time since joining the Maker stable earlier this year.