Ellis moves Groupie Doll Stakes to a Sunday
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ellis Park has rearranged the stakes schedule for its summer meet by moving its marquee race, the Groupie Doll Stakes, to a Sunday while also reinstituting the Debutante Stakes following a nine-year hiatus.
In all, six stakes will be run at the Henderson, Ky., track during a nine-week meet that starts July 1. Ellis racing secretary Dan Bork said moving the Grade 3, $100,000 Groupie Doll to Sunday, Aug. 13, will avert conflicts with such major Saturday races as the Arlington Million and West Virginia Derby, and that Sundays typically draw “large and festive crowds” anyway.
◗ Horse vans have been steadily making their way through the stable gates at Keeneland and Churchill, and the conclusion this weekend of the Gulfstream championship meet and the four-month Fair Grounds winter-spring meet means the northward migration will begin in earnest in the coming days.