Ivy Bell due for some luck in Dream Supreme Stakes

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ivy Bell has endured more than her share of misadventure, so owner Brook Smith and trainer Billy Denzik are hoping the talented 4-year-old filly can end the year on a positive note Friday at Churchill in the $80,000 Dream Supreme.

Since last November, Ivy Bell has finished first in four of six starts, but she was disqualified from one of those wins for a medication violation and was impeded as the odds-on favorite in another race, causing her to throw jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. Then, last month she was trying to earn a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in the Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland, but she acted up when being loaded into the starting gate and was scratched.

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“She’ll get a little breather after this,” said Smith. “The dream is to set her on a campaign that will bring her back to Churchill next year for the Filly-Mare Sprint.”

Hernandez rides Ivy Bell again in the Dream Supreme.

A field of 10 fillies and mares is entered in the six-furlong Dream Supreme, which directly precedes the Clark as the 10th of 12 races on Friday. Other top contenders in the Dream Supreme include Kathballu, Athena, Auntjenn, and Mayla.

◗ Following a compulsory review by the American Graded Stakes Committee after the race was transferred last Saturday from the turf to the main track, the Cardinal Handicap has kept its Grade 3 status. Tricky Escape, trained by Lynn Ashby, won the 1 1/8-mile race in a field that was reduced to seven starters from its original 12 following the surface switch.