Profound Legacy shows flashes of big sister in allowance win

A 2-year-old full sister to 2012 Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can is drawing raves upon returning to her Kentucky roots after beginning her career in the Northwest.

Profound Legacy was a 4 1/2-length winner of an allowance race last Saturday at Ellis Park in western Kentucky. The impressive showing led her new trainer, Ian Wilkes, to plan on running her next in the Aug. 19 Ellis Debutante, followed perhaps by the Pocahontas at the September meet at his main base, Churchill Downs.

Wilkes actually made the long trip to Seattle to advise a team that negotiated a private purchase of Profound Legacy shortly after the filly won her June 3 debut at Emerald Downs by 7 3/4 lengths for her original owners, Mark Dedomenico and Mike Waters, and trainer Mike Puhich. There are multiple owners of Profound Legacy, with the primary partners being Turf Stable and Six Column Stables, and the original owners staying in for a 25 percent stake.

Profound Legacy, like Believe You Can, is a Kentucky-bred by Proud Citizen out of El Fasto, by El Prado, and also was bred by former Kentucky Gov. Brereton C. Jones.

Wilkes told Ellis publicity by phone from Saratoga after the Saturday romp: “We toyed with the idea of running at Saratoga, but we decided, ‘Let’s stay at Ellis and see what we have.’ We want to develop her.”

The Grade 2 Pocahontas is a Win and You’re In toward the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, and Wilkes is looking for Profound Legacy to improve over her first two Beyer Speed Figures (58, 59) as she matures.

“She was a little green,” he said, regarding her Eillis victory. “Even though she ran away from them, she still was making mistakes. The water gets deeper as we go. This was only her second start.”