LEXINGTON, Ky. – Key of Life bookended the 2022 Keeneland fall meet in noteworthy fashion. A 6 1/4-length winner on opening day, the speedy filly wheeled back three weeks later to win the Myrtlewood Stakes by 6 3/4 lengths on the meet’s penultimate card. Both of those six-furlong romps will serve as major reference points Sunday toward the Grade 2, $400,000 Beaumont Stakes. Making her first appearance here since those breakthrough scores, Key of Life is the even-money program favorite in a field of seven 3-year-old fillies who will run out of the Beard Course chute at the unique distance of seven furlongs and 184 feet. Key of Life, with Flavien Prat riding from post 7, comes off a 3 1/4-length domination of the Purple Martin. Brad Cox is the trainer of Key of Life, a bay Mo Town filly who is wheeling back 22 days after earning a career-best 91 Beyer Speed Figure from that March 25 race at Oaklawn Park. In all, she has won 4 of 7 starts, with the Beaumont marking her graded-stakes debut. “We kind of called an audible with her,” said Staton Flurry, who co-owns Key of Life with Hoffman Family Racing. “We ran her quite a bit as a 2-year-old, so we wanted to give her a little more space in between races this year. “She came out of the Oaklawn race in good order and has been training great. Brad called me the other day and said, ‘Let’s call an audible and look at the Beaumont.’ You couldn’t ask for a better post draw, so hopefully we can get some graded black type on her page and continue the momentum throughout the rest of the year.” :: Bet Keeneland with Confidence: Get DRF PPs, Picks, and Betting Strategies. Shop Now.  The only other early-going type in the Beaumont lineup is the 3-1 second choice Stonewall Star (post 3, Luis Saez), who also happens to own a 4-for-7 record. Something will have to give between the two favorites, as Stonewall Star also has leveraged a superior turn of foot in winning three ungraded sprint stakes, the latest an 11-length jaunt in the Feb. 18 Wide Country at Laurel Park. The New York-bred daughter of Flatter is trained by Horacio De Paz for Barry Schwartz. If things fall apart up front, the top threat to capitalize has to be Interpolate (post 4, Irad Ortiz Jr.). Trained by Chad Brown for Klaravich Stables, the daughter of uber-sire Into Mischief shows six workouts since rallying to win the Feb. 5 Ruthless going seven furlongs at Aqueduct. Shoplifter (post 1, Corey Lanerie) might be a useful sleeper, even at her 20-1 program odds. Trainer Eddie Kenneally thought enough of the Super Saver filly to run her here last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, a two-turn race in which she was a no-threat 11th at 93-1. Since then, Shoplifter has raced just once, finishing a creditable third in a February allowance at Fair Grounds. “Obviously, we’re hoping she’ll move up off a race she needed,” said Kenneally. “We’ll need some of the others to come back to us, but yes, the filly is training very well.” Rounding out the cast are a pair of stakes winners in Fun and Feisty (post 5, Brian Hernandez Jr.) and Opus Forty Two (post 6, Tyler Gaffalione), along with the last-out maiden winner She’s On the Rocks (post 2, John McKee). The Beaumont directly follows the $250,000 Palisades as the eighth of nine races on a program that starts at 1 p.m. Eastern. Post time for the Beaumont is 5:16. The Beaumont offers 20 points toward the May 5 Kentucky Oaks on a 10-4-3-2-1 scale, but the 14th horse on the current list of Oaks point-earners (Mimi Kakushi) has collected 50 points, which renders this race, in all likelihood, moot in that regard. Cox already has the points leader Wet Paint as the probable Oaks favorite. :: Take your handicapping to the next level and play with FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic.  This is the 38th running of the Beaumont, which honors the Beaumont Farm of one of the track’s founders Hal Price Headley. Prior winners include such notables as Go for Wand (1990), Xtra Heat (2001), and the popularly named Gas Station Sushi (2018). Cox and Prat teamed to easily win this race last year with the Godolphin homebred Matareya. Overnight rain from Saturday into Sunday is in the local forecast, with the track perhaps drying out to fast as the afternoon wears on. After Sunday, Keeneland goes dark two days before racing resumes Wednesday with an eight-race card. The 15-day spring meet runs through April 28. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.