Lanerie tries to remain in good groove aboard Bouchon

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Racing fans in Kentucky and beyond will spend the next few days with one eye on Keeneland and the other on Breeders’ Cup developments. It has become a rite of late October, when Keeneland wraps up its front-loaded meet by playing out the string with programs that, understandably, might best be described as standard fare.

With all that, back-to-back allowance sprints serve as highlights of a nine-race Wednesday card that kicks off the final four-day stretch of the meet. The seventh race is a $49,000, first-level Polytrack race that drew eight fillies and mares, and the eighth is a $51,000, second-level turf race that got an overflow field of 3-year-olds and upward.

In the seventh, jockey Corey Lanerie will be looking to add to the best Keeneland meet of his career when climbing aboard Bouchon for trainer Gerry Carwood. Lanerie has seven wins at the meet, already one more than his previous high, and he had the call from Todd Pletcher when prevailing aboard Hilda’s Passion in the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes here Saturday.

Pletcher also has a contender in the seventh in Bialy, who will be ridden by Garrett Gomez. Bialy, making her synthetics debut, showed a new dimension in her latest when closing well to be third.

The eighth race looks like quite a jumble, although they all probably will have the battle-wisened Calculating Jimmy to catch under jockey Jesus Castanon. Two of the logical favorites are drawn just outside of him in the 5 1/2-furlong sprint: Great Attack, a 3-year-old who was a respectable sixth at long odds in the ultra-tough Woodford Stakes on opening weekend, and Backstabber, a 4-year-old who won two turf sprints within a two-week period at the Arlington Park meet before being given a brief respite by trainer Wayne Catalano.

Great Attack earned a lofty 93 Beyer Speed Figure in the Woodford, and with Gomez taking the call from trainer Wesley Ward, he could rule a slight choice in a race in which 13 are entered but only as many as 12 can start.

First post Wednesday is 1:15 p.m. Eastern.

Only one stakes, the Fayette, remains on the schedule. The Grade 2, $150,000 Polytrack race will be run Saturday, closing day of the 17-day meet.