Proctor's Ledge seeks first Grade 1 win in Just a Game

ELMONT, N.Y. – Proctor’s Ledge is based at Keeneland but has not won in three starts there, including two eighth-place efforts against Grade 1 competition. Proctor’s Ledge is a three-time graded stakes winner on other courses, however, and again takes her show on the road looking for her first Grade 1 win in the $700,000 Just a Game Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park.

“I don’t think she handles Keeneland, for whatever reason,” trainer Brendan Walsh said. “Keeneland seems to be her nemesis. I don’t know why. She’s running out of her own stall there, and she works well there. Last year, maybe she’d gone over the top. But I have no idea why she ran the way she did there this spring.”

Proctor’s Ledge won the Grade 3 Lake George and Grade 2 Lake Placid stakes last summer at Saratoga. After two losses to start this season, she scored a half-length victory in the Grade 2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile five weeks ago. Jockey John Velazquez was aboard and retains the mount for the Just a Game, run at a one-turn mile.

“I think she’ll like the big, sweeping turn,” Walsh said. “She has always been a good turn runner.”

Proctor’s Ledge matched her career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 96 while running on a Churchill Downs turf course rated “good” on a soggy Kentucky Derby Day. Rain is possible in New York on Saturday.

Proctor’s Ledge again meets On Leave, whom she edged by a half-length in the Distaff Mile. On Leave won three stakes in 2017, capping her season with a win in the Grade 3 My Charmer Stakes in December at Gulfstream Park. This year, she was third in the Grade 3 Honey Fox Stakes at Gulfstream before the Distaff Mile, beaten a length combined in those two outings.

“Her two races this year have been really good, so we’ll see what happens,” trainer Shug McGaughey said. “We’re hoping to get some racing luck on the grass. If she goes over there and runs her race the way she has been, she’ll be just as tough as the rest of them.”

A Raving Beauty is the morning-line favorite after winning her U.S. debut in the Grade 3 Beaugay Stakes on this course last month. A Raving Beauty was Group 1-placed in both her native Germany and in Italy. She is one of two starters for Chad Brown, who also saddles Off Limits, looking to get back on track after two losses to start the year, including a third in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes last out. Off Limits won five of six starts last year, highlighted by a win in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar, and her only loss came by a neck to On Leave.

Mark Casse also sends out a pair in the Just a Game, Dream Dancing and La Coronel. They were Grade 1 winners last year as 3-year-olds but were fourth and sixth in the Distaff Mile last out. Graded stakes winners Cambodia and Lull complete the field.