Plenty of talent despite lack of stakes

There’s no stakes on the Keeneland program Sunday, but the feature is good enough to be one. The top purse of the day belongs to the fourth race, a $69,000 allowance that includes several veteran graded stakes performers – including Red Rifle, who is looking to build on the best season of his life.

Red Rifle rounded into the best form of his career last summer at age 5. He won the Grade 3 Dominion Day Stakes at Woodbine and the Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap at Saratoga, before finishing second to the globe-trotting star Flintshire in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational. This will be the first start for Red Rifle since finishing seventh in last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland. Trained by Todd Pletcher, he drew post 4 in the field of 8 with Javier Castellano in the irons.

Red Rifle will face two top-class Canadian horses. Millionaire Dynamic Sky was the Sovereign Award champion as Canada’s top grass horse of 2014, but is winless since that season. Danish Dynaformer, winner of the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown in the Breeders’ Stakes, is a finalist for the 2015 Sovereign Awards, which were to be presented Friday night, for champion 3-year-old male.

Dynamic Sky is trained by Mark Casse, while Danish Dynaformer is trained by Roger Attfield. Both men are finalists for the 2015 Sovereign Award as Canada’s outstanding trainer, an award they have won 15 times combined. It was announced this week that Casse will join Attfield in the Canadian Hall of Fame.

Morandi has an extreme amount of back class, as he won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud in France in 2012 and finished second in the following year’s French Derby. However, he was idle for the entire 2014 season, and finished sixth in an optional-claiming event last July at Belmont, his only U.S. start. He is trained by Chad Brown.

Triple Threat was a multiple group stakes winner in France, and won a Grade 2 in the U.S. last year. Potomac River is a multiple graded stakes winner, but has not won a race at that level since 2014. He drops in class after going unplaced in his first three outings of the season. The field is completed by Under Control, who won a minor stakes last summer at Saratoga, and Fire Away, who ended his 2015 campaign with consecutive optional wins in New York.

The Sunday card at Keeneland also includes a $62,000 allowance for 3-year-old fillies, with several coming off impressive maiden wins, and a pair of maiden special weight events, including the second 2-year-old race of the year in Kentucky.

Key contenders

Red Rifle, by Giant’s Causeway

Last 3 Beyers: 99-96-110

◗ Ran four triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures last year, including a 110 when second to Flintshire, to rank him as the class of this field.

◗ In all, he owns five stakes wins and four placings, and is closing in on millionaire status.

◗ Finished second in the Grade 3 Sycamore on the Keeneland turf in 2014.

Dynamic Sky, by Sky Mesa

Last 3 Beyers: 87-97-93

◗ Although he is trying to break a long winless streak, he recorded two triple-digit Beyers last year, including when he was second by a neck in the Grade 2 Elkhorn on the Keeneland turf.

◗ Casse and jockey Julien Leparoux team up with the horse, who drew post 6.

Danish Dynaformer, by Dynaformer

Last 3 Beyers: 97-89-95

◗ Drew post 7 under Paco Lopez.