Ever So Clever's class stands out in allowance route

The future is the focus in three races for 2-year-olds on Wednesday at Keeneland, with one particularly well-regarded filly standing out early on the eight-race card.

Ever So Clever looms large against five other juvenile fillies in a $62,000 allowance at 1 1/16 miles on the main track in the second race. She was beaten just a half-length when second in the Grade 2 Pocahontas Stakes on Sept. 17 at Churchill Downs.

Ricardo Santana Jr. will be aboard Ever So Clever for the third time in her fourth career start for trainer Steve Asmussen. He also was up for her 7 1/4-length debut score in July at Churchill Downs, for which she earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 72, far and away the best number in this field.

Also exiting stakes company are Lapinski, a Darley homebred who was ninth in the Grade 1 Natalma on Woodbine’s turf last month, and speed factor Like a Hurricane, who folded after setting the pace to finish ninth in the Debutante Stakes in July at Churchill Downs.

Asmussen also figures prominently with his 2-year-olds in the day’s fifth race, a $60,000 maiden special weight with a full field, as he will saddle Untrapped and King’s Reckoning. Untrapped, a $125,000 purchase at the OBS April sale of 2-year-olds in training, has been firing bullets at Churchill Downs and Keeneland in preparation for his debut. King’s Reckoning is by Dialed In, among this year’s leading freshman sires.

◗ The nominal feature is the seventh race, a $66,000 conditioned allowance for older horses on turf. The standout is Ascend, who has leading rider Julien Leparoux and trainer Graham Motion, who has won three stakes at this meet, going for him. Ascend has never finished worse than second on Keeneland’s turf, with an allowance victory here during the spring meet.

Flashlight most recently finished second to Pleuven in a stakes on the Ellis Park turf over the summer. The field also includes 2013 Kentucky Derby runner-up Golden Soul, reunited with trainer Dallas Stewart for his first start since March, after spending the winter training and racing in Dubai. ◗ Wednesday’s card should again get standout fall weather, with the forecast calling for a high of 83 and only partly cloudy skies. The temperature is expected to drop back into the 60s, with rain moving into the area, on Thursday and Friday.

◗ All the Grade 1 events of Keeneland’s front-loaded fall meeting are now in the books, with just five stakes remaining for the final two weeks of the meet: the Grade 3 Sycamore on Thursday, the Grade 3 Valley View on Friday, the Grade 3 Raven Run on Saturday, the Grade 3 Dowager on Sunday, and the Grade 2 Fayette on Oct. 29, closing day.