Evenly matched, full field for Keertana
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – At a meet in which short fields have been the norm, Saturday’s $62,500 Keertana Stakes at Churchill Downs offers a refreshing change of pace. The race drew 12 horses, and the field is so evenly matched that six entrants are between odds of 9-2 and 6-1 on the morning line.
Among the entries in the Keertana, a 1 3/8-mile turf race for fillies and mares, are two stakes winners in Always Kitten and Topic, plus six other stakes-placed runners.
Always Kitten, coming off a troubled sixth in the Grade 3 Bewitch at Keeneland on April 24, is the lone multiple stakes winner. She won the Ta Wee at Indiana Downs last year and the Jersey Lilly Stakes at Houston on March 1 before the Bewitch.
In the Bewitch, she ran into traffic problems leaving the final turn and into the stretch. She was steadied briefly a couple of times in traffic, though it seemed unlikely to have cost her a top-three finish.
With Rosie Napravnik, her jockey in her last two starts, riding Bayern in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, Robby Albarado picks up the mount. Mike Maker trains for her owners and breeders, Ken and Sarah Ramsey.
Topic also drops from graded stakes company, which she has faced in her last three races since winning the CTT and Thoroughbred Owners of California Handicap last summer at Del Mar going 1 3/8 miles. She closed out 2013 with a seventh in the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive and has a sixth in the Grade 2 Santa Ana and a seventh in the Grade 3 Santa Barbara in two starts this year.
Corey Lanerie has the call on Topic, a 4-year-old daughter of Discreet Cat who was Grade 1-placed in the American Oaks last summer at Hollywood Park.
Tom Proctor – who trained Keertana, the mare for which the stakes is named – is represented by two stakes-placed mares: Gulsary and Seanchai.
The former looks like the stronger of the two entrants, having finished third twice over the winter at Santa Anita in the Grade 3 Bobby Frankel and Megahertz Stakes. She had a rough trip when sixth in a stakes-quality allowance at Keeneland on April 13 over a course that was dry and had significant sand kickback.
Following rain this week in Louisville, the course at Churchill Downs should be more to her liking.