New overnight stakes represents upgraded Ellis product
A rich Sunday card featuring a new overnight stakes serves as further reminders that this isn’t your dad’s Ellis Park.
Whereas low-level claimers competing for paltry purses had been the norm for many years since Ellis was founded in 1922, a much classier brand of racing has evolved in recent times at the western Kentucky track. An eight-race Sunday program anchored by the first running of the $60,000 Pea Patch, along with five more races with purses exceeding $50,000 (three allowances and two maiden-specials), underscores the track’s ongoing transformation.
The Pea Patch, a tribute to the track’s longtime nickname, drew a field of nine 3-year-old fillies going 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf. New Boss, with Adam Beschizza riding for trainer Bret Calhoun, turns back from a third-place finish in the closing-day Tepin Stakes at Churchill Downs, where the Street Boss filly pushed the pace the whole way before coming up a half-length shy.
“She has been very versatile,” said Calhoun. “I usually don’t like to change the distances back-and-forth like I have with her, but she has handled it well mentally and physically. She should run very good.”
First post daily at Ellis is 12:50 p.m. Central. After Sunday, the track goes dark for four days until another three-day weekend starts Friday. The next stakes won’t be run until the Aug. 7-8 weekend, when seven $100,000 previews toward the Kentucky Downs meet will be held.