Expensive juveniles meet in career debuts

Thursday’s card opens the race week at Ellis Park and also is the career opener for some pricey 2-year-olds.

The second race on the nine-race card is a $120,000 maiden special weight for juveniles. Daily Grind was a $1.35 million purchase by D. Wayne Lukas, on behalf of BC Stables, at last summer’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale. The Medaglia d’Oro colt, who has been training steadily at Churchill Downs, is out of Grade 3 winner Walk Close, by emerging broodmare sire Tapit. That makes Daily Grind a full brother to 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile runner-up Anneau d’Or.

The morning-line favorite in the field of eight is Lambo, trained by Steve Asmussen. The son of juvenile champion Uncle Mo – sire of two classic winners who were graded winners as juveniles – was a $950,000 purchase by Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt and Jackpot Farm. He is out of Sunshiny Day, whose sire is standout broodmare sire Bernardini and whose dam is champion 2-year-old filly Storm Song.

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Four runners in this field come in with prior racing experience. Chief among those is El Peligro, who was second on debut at Horseshoe Indianapolis earlier this month for John Ortiz, the leading trainer at Ellis last year. The colt is from the first crop of World of Trouble.

Everso Mischievous back

The promising Everso Mischievous headlines a $127,000 allowance on Thursday. The son of leading sire Into Mischief and stakes mare Ever So Clever was second by a head to a next-out winner in February for Brad Cox and Qatar Racing. He proceeded to win his maiden on Kentucky Derby Day. He earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 92, bettering the 90 from his debut. Those are the top numbers in this field.

The Thursday card also includes a pair of allowance/optional-claiming races with purses of $134,000 and a pair of $120,000 maiden special weights for older runners.

Turf sprinkler snafu

With wet weather forecast in Kentucky this week, there are three turf races scheduled Thursday. Races were forced off the turf on Sunday at Ellis when the track maintenance crew, preparing for the day’s card, discovered a broken sprinkler head on the turf at midstretch. It was determined that the affected area of the course would not be able to dry out before the day’s scheduled grass races, both of which were moved to the main track. As a result, Sunday’s featured Mighty Beau scratched from a field of 10 down to three runners.

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