Lack of pace could hinder Ghostly Gal in turf allowance

The Sunday card at Churchill Downs closes the week with a 10-race program offering appealing fare, with three allowance events and two maiden special weights.

Landing early, as the fourth race on the program, is a non-winners of two allowance race with a $134,000 purse for fillies and mares going nine furlongs on turf, and the field of nine includes some stakes-quality types. Among those, Ghostly Gal may offer value as she comes back to a favored course, but she will have to contend with the race shape.

The last time Ghostly Gal raced on the Churchill turf for Wayne Catalano, she rallied to best multiple stakes winner Dana’s Beauty by a head in the Claiming Crown Jewel. It was her third straight win at the time, but since then, Ghostly Gal hasn’t matched that form on a variety of tracks.

Ghostly Gal was third at Turfway Park behind two Tapeta-loving fillies, Dana’s Beauty and Everland, in the My Charmer, then was fourth on a sloppy track in the off-the-turf Marie G. Krantz Memorial at Fair Grounds. Two turf losses at Fair Grounds followed, as she was eighth in the Albert M. Stall Memorial and then fourth in an allowance on March 18. That effort with the drop in class was deceptively solid. Victimized by a slow pace – the field went in 51.70 seconds for the half – and seven wide at the quarter pole, she was beaten just more than a length.

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Ghostly Gal and Paint Me Perfect, second in that allowance, will both have to contend with a lack of real committed speed in here. Just Better, stakes-placed at Pimlico last year, prefers to be forwardly placed, and Frankie Dettori could take advantage if no one else goes. Sanctify led in her most recent start, a new tactic for her, before fading to 11th in a marathon allowance at Keeneland.

Waves of Mischief gets class relief as she makes her 2025 debut. The filly won the Grade 3 Pucker Up going this nine furlongs last summer at Ellis before finishing second by a head in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs going longer. She was most recently seen finishing 10th in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup in October at Keeneland. The hot-riding Ben Curtis picks up the mount for Brendan Walsh.

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