Full fields to kick off meet's second week

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With its opening weekend in the rearview mirror, the Keeneland entry box is perhaps less star-studded, but no less full, as the track moves into the second week of its fall meeting. Of the eight races on Wednesday’s card, seven oversubscribed, with the exception being the first race, which has a healthy eight entries. There are three allowance-level events plus a maiden special weight for juveniles highlighting the card.

The fifth race is an allowance for which the $110,000 purse includes bonuses from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund. Several of the entrants in this mile turf race are well-related Kentucky-breds looking to take the next step in their careers.

Mazuma returned from a five-month layoff to finish third in his first start against winners in a Kentucky Downs allowance race last month, an effort on that undulating course that probably moved him forward from a fitness perspective off that break. The Steve Asmussen trainee earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 80.

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Mazuma is by Triple Crown winner and good turf sire American Pharoah, and out of the Galileo mare Moth, who was third in the English 1000 Guineas.

Race 5 entrant Emirates Road looked like he was on the rise when he won a maiden at seven furlongs on Keeneland’s dirt in April, posting an 83 Beyer. But he finished unplaced in three allowance/optional-claiming events on the dirt at Churchill Downs – albeit, all against solid company. Emirates Road, who makes his turf debut for Brendan Walsh, is by multi-purpose sire Quality Road and is from the immediate family of turf Grade 1 winner Better Lucky.

The eighth race, also a $110,000 allowance on the turf, features Legionnaire and Rhetoric, both well-bred colts who have faced solid company. Rhetoric is making his first start for Walsh after transferring in from the West Coast, where he ran a pair of 87 Beyers for Bob Baffert, placing him among the top of the field. Making his turf debut, the colt is by Quality Road and out of Grade 1-winning turf mare Hard Not to Like.

Legionnaire, also making his turf debut for Tom Drury Jr., was second three starts back to Elite Power, who won the Grade 2 Vosburgh on Saturday.

The seventh race, a $110,000 allowance/optional claimer for 2-year-olds going two turns, lost one entrant and gained one from the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity on last Saturday’s card.

Carmel Road drew in to the Futurity, in which he finished 13th, and will thus be a scratch from this race. But Confidence Game scratched from the Futurity in favor of this easier spot. The colt, a five-length maiden winner at Churchill Downs for Keith Desormeaux, was fifth in the Grade 3 Iroquois.

Bourbon Spirit, a debut winner at Ellis Park for Brad Cox, was second in the one-mile Sapling Stakes at Monmouth to Lost Ark. Lost Ark came back to finish sixth in the Futurity.

Guns n’ Lilies makes her third career start in the sixth race, a $100,000 maiden special weight for 2-year-old fillies. The daughter of white-hot young sire Gun Runner has faced stakes horses in each of her first two outings for Ian Wilkes. She was eighth on debut at Ellis Park, and victorious Justa Warrior came back to win the Ellis Park Debutante. Guns n’ Lilies then tried turf and finished fourth behind subsequent Kentucky Downs stakes winner Chop Chop – who was second in the Grade 1 Alcibiades on Friday at Keeneland.

Mija finished behind two next-out winners when fifth on debut going six furlongs at Saratoga for Todd Pletcher and will likely appreciate the extra distance. The Curlin filly is out of Grade 1 winner Rachel’s Valentina, out of Rachel Alexandra.

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