Keeneland: Blue Grass Stakes principals Smile Happy, Zandon must time runs properly

LEXINGTON, Ky. – This is what it comes to. A long winter of waiting and thinking and planning and hoping will boil down to a critical span of less than two minutes when the Blue Grass Stakes is run Saturday at Keeneland.

Smile Happy and Zandon, the two favorites in a field of 12 Blue Grass runners, have been regarded for months as major contenders for the 148th Kentucky Derby. Now would be a good time to prove it.

“It does test you a little bit, all the waiting and wondering,” said Kenny McPeek, the trainer of Smile Happy. “After Saturday, though, we should know a lot more.”

Smile Happy and Zandon both trained in steady fashion through the winter in Florida, and both shipped to New Orleans to finish second and third, respectively, in the Feb. 19 Risen Star at Fair Grounds in their only starts so far this year. The Risen Star has evolved into a key prep, with its winner, Epicenter, being a consensus early favorite for the May 7 Kentucky Derby after winning back in the March 26 Louisiana Derby.

“It’s proved to be a very strong field,” said Chad Brown, who trains Zandon for Jeff Drown. “Our horse has very good form around him.”

Both colts ended their 2-year-old seasons with big efforts – Smile Happy won the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs and Zandon was beaten just a nose in the Grade 2 Remsen at Aqueduct.

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Smile Happy, with Corey Lanerie riding from post 10, is the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the $1 million Blue Grass, the ninth of 11 races on a spectacular Saturday card at Keeneland. Zandon, the 5-2 second choice, will have Flavien Prat up when breaking from post 4.

The 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass, a 100-40-20-10 points qualifier for the Derby, has regained Grade 1 status for the first time since being downgraded to a Grade 2 in 2017. Once a rapid-fire producer of Derby winners, the Blue Grass has not had its winner capture the Derby since Strike the Gold in 1991, with the 2007 Blue Grass runner-up, Street Sense, being the only Derby winner to exit this race in the intervening years.

First post Saturday is 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with the 98th Blue Grass set for 5:10. It’s part of a live 90-minute broadcast (4:30-6) on NBC, along with the Wood Memorial and Santa Anita Derby.

Smile Happy and Zandon tend to do their best from off the pace, and with not a whole lot of early speed in this Blue Grass, timely decisions by Lanerie and Prat might well be key to the outcome. Emmanuel (post 6, Luis Saez), trained by Todd Pletcher for WinStar Farm and Siena Farm, looks like he should be forwardly placed and perhaps will give closest chase to the likely front-runner, Fenwick (post 2, Paco Lopez), a last-out maiden winner on the March 12 Tampa Bay Derby undercard.

Emmanuel, fourth in the March 5 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park after easily winning his first two starts, “has always been a colt we’ve thought a lot of,” said WinStar president Elliott Walden.

“He’s really trained forwardly for this,” Walden said. “We have high hopes for Saturday.”

Smile Happy, owned by the Mackin family of Louisville, “ought to run a little bit early, fresh as he is,” said McPeek, adding the apparent lack of speed in the race “is something that’s out of our control.”

“If he runs his race, he should be tough,” he said.

McPeek and the Mackins have a second Blue Grass runner in Rattle N Roll (post 9, Brian Hernandez Jr.), who has been somewhat disappointing in two starts since winning the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity by 4 1/4 lengths here last fall. Rattle N Roll will race while equipped with half-cup blinkers for the first time.

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“We entered to run,” said McPeek, referring to how this will be the colt’s third race in a five-week period. “I really liked the way he trained the last several days. They only get one shot at running in the Blue Grass, you know.”

Completing the Blue Grass field are Commandperformance, Trademark, Volcanic, Golden Glider, Ethereal Road, Blackadder, and Grantham.

The Blue Grass is the last of five straight graded stakes on a huge day of racing. It’s the anchor leg of several multi-race wagers involving the other stakes, those being the Grade 3 Commonwealth (race 5), Grade 2 Appalachian (race 6), Grade 1 Madison (race 7), and Grade 2 Shakertown (race 8).

Massive purses and big fields characterize the entire card. The lowest purse is $100,000, and there are a whopping 148 entries (including also-eligibles and exclusions) in the 11 races. The $3-minimum Turf Pick 3 will be on races 6-8-11.

An ontrack crowd of some 30,000 can be expected, even with high temperatures only expected to reach the mid-40s. A 40 percent chance of rain also is in the regional forecast.