Keeneland: Bashart meets Boji Moon in Bourbon Stakes

[bc_video_id:306400:]Even though Sunday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Bourbon Stakes on the Keeneland grass drew 12 2-year-olds plus an also-eligible runner, the betting public is likely to view it as simply a two-horse race.

Those two horses: Bashart, twice a winner at Saratoga on grass, including in the Grade 2 With Anticipation on Aug. 29, and Boji Moon, an Iowa-bred who has proven untouchable in three races, including the Kentucky Downs Juvenile.

Bashart is the 5-2 morning-line favorite. He has twice won at the 1 1/16-mile distance of the Bourbon, and is the only graded stakes winner in this Win and You’re In prep for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Boji Moon, the 3-1 second choice, has run faster than Bashart, having twice earned Beyer Speed Figures in the 80s, topped by an 86 in winning the Kentucky Downs Juvenile. That figure is 5 points higher than Bashart’s top mark, posted in the With Anticipation.

Beyond being fast, Boji Moon has visually wowed, first winning a pair of Iowa-bred races at Prairie Meadows by an average of 12 lengths, then scoring by 5 1/4 lengths at Kentucky Downs, with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. allowing him to coast home.

Those looking to gauge the quality of the Kentucky Downs opposition should pay heed to the fourth race Sunday at Keeneland, a one-mile turf allowance in which Kentucky Downs Juvenile runner-up Here’s Johnny is favored.

Chris Richard trains Boji Moon, a Cactus Ridge gelding not nominated to the Breeders’ Cup owned by Brian Hall, William Gessman, and River Ridge Ranch.

If the favorites have a weakness, it is that both run on or near the lead, which is true of the vast majority of the Bourbon entrants and could contribute to a taxing early pace. Such a scenario would benefit closers School On a Hill and Whyruawesome.

School On a Hill also was entered in Saturday’s Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, but he was to scratch from that race and run in the Bourbon, trainer Wayne Catalano said.

Purchased privately after winning at first asking on the Arlington grass Aug. 22, School On a Hill returned to finish seventh at Woodbine in the Summer Stakes in his first start for his new connections. Catalano said jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson told him, “He never handled the course.”

School On a Hill adds Lasix for the first time Sunday, although Catalano said the horse did not bleed in the Summer.