Field Pass may need to use speed in Transylvania

Mike Maker and Graham Motion are both known as outstanding turf trainers – and outstanding trainers at Keeneland. Motion has saddled 33 stakes winners at the Lexington, Ky., track, the fourth-most all-time. Maker has captured six meet training titles at Keeneland, tied for fourth most.

Yet neither one has won the Grade 3, $100,000 Transylvania Stakes for 3-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles on the turf. Between them, they have three solid chances to change that in Sunday’s renewal at Keeneland.

Maker’s duo is led by morning-line favorite Field Pass, who is looking for his fourth stakes victory of 2020. Field Pass, who was Grade 3-placed as a juvenile, opened his campaign by winning the Dania Beach Stakes on the Gulfstream Park turf, then won the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks on Turfway’s Polytrack. After finishing third in the War Chant at Churchill Downs, he rebounded to win the Audubon Stakes on June 20 on that course. He earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 93, the top number in this field.

“He’s been a really nice horse this year for us,” Maker said after the Audubon. “That was a nice victory, and he did everything very easy.”

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Field Pass will have his fifth different rider in as many starts this year as Ricardo Santana Jr. gets aboard him for the first time in the Transylvania. They have drawn the inside post in the field of 11 colts and geldings, meaning Field Pass may have to use the speed he showed when wiring the field in the Audubon. The colt has displayed versatile styles, rallying from well back in the Dania Beach and War Chant, but stalking the pace in the Ruby.

Maker also will saddle Fancy Liquor, who in his two most recent outings finished third behind Field Pass in the Ruby, then second in a Churchill turf allowance.

Irish Mias is from a family his trainer, Motion, is familiar with. A first-time gelding, Irish Mias is a half-brother to Regally Irish, a Motion-trained stakes winner, and is from the immediate family of graded stakes winners Irish War Cry and Irish Strait. Irish Mias won the Laurel Futurity at 1 1/16 miles on the turf as a juvenile. In his only start this season, he finished fourth in the Grade 3 Kitten’s Joy Stakes in January going seven furlongs on the Gulfstream turf. John Velazquez picks up the mount.

Chad Brown is looking for his third win in the Transylvania and second in three years. He saddled Analyze It to win in 2018. This year, he sends out Vintage Print, who is looking for his third straight win. The Curlin colt, a $1 million yearling purchase, is out of Molly Morgan, a Grade 1 winner on dirt. After Vintage Print ran sixth and eighth on dirt in his first two starts, Brown switched him to the turf, and he was won both his starts on the surface. The most recent of those was a Churchill allowance June 11 in which he defeated Fancy Liquor by a half-length.

Bama Breeze finished second in the Audubon for trainer Rusty Arnold, with his 91 Beyer the second-highest in this field.