Luck Money, Temple City Terror will be tighter for Keertana
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A couple of stretch-running turf mares with a much-needed race under their belts look like the top contenders Saturday in the featured Keertana Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Temple City Terror and Luck Money will start alongside each other in posts 7 and 8, respectively, when facing seven other fillies and mares in the $160,000 Keertana, a 1 1/2-mile turf fixture carded as the 10th of 11 races.
Temple City Terror, with Adam Beschizza up, will be stretching out to a more comfortable distance following a respectable fifth-place finish returning from an eight-month layoff in a 1 1/16-mile turf allowance last month at Keeneland. Trained by Brendan Walsh, the 6-year-old Temple City mare has done her best work at Churchill, having won three of four starts over the turf here, including last year's running of the Keertana. The turf has been replaced with a new $10 million course since her last appearance here.
“Hopefully she runs as well over the new one as she did the old one,” said Walsh.
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Temple City Terror breezed Tuesday over the new course, going an easy three furlongs, “and it seemed like she handled it real well,” said Walsh.
“She just galloped on around there and kicked in late,” Walsh said.
Luck Money, with Brian Hernandez Jr. riding for the first time, will be looking to improve off a runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay over a soggy Belmont Park turf earlier this month. Based in northern Maryland with trainer Arnaud Delacour, the 5-year-old daughter of Lookin At Lucky will be equipped with blinkers in her second start since late November.
There’s an ample amount of speed signed on in the three-turn Keertana, with Undisturbed likely to sail off from her outside post after showing early foot in recent races at shorter distances. Disappearing Act and Federalist Papers, both of them last-out allowance winners over the Keeneland turf, should be able to keep Undisturbed honest, while both Luck Money and Temple City Terror figure to be revving up from farther back.
The Keertana is named for the Barbara Hunter homebred whose last of 11 victories came against males in the 2011 Louisville Handicap and helped push her career bankroll past the $1 million mark. Its purse includes $65,000 in Kentucky-bred bonuses for which all nine starters are eligible except for the British-bred La Lune.
One of the Keertana longshots is Stand Tall, whose trainer, Rusty Arnold, won the male counterpart to the Keertana, the Grade 3 Louisville, with Cellist last Saturday. Arnold has a major player in one of the secondary features on the day in Totally Boss, who returns from a layoff of nearly a year in race 4, a $141,000 allowance going 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf.
Three other allowances (races 7, 9, and 11) and three maiden-specials (races 3, 5, and 8) also help make up another outstanding program replete with six-figure purses.
First post Saturday is 12:45 p.m. Eastern, with the Keertana going at 5:25 and the 11th race at 5:58. Following rainy weather in the preceding days, the Saturday forecast calls for sunshine and a high of 77.