Pure Clan returns to turf

Pure Clan returns to grass for the first time since last fall in Saturday's Regret Stakes.P

This spring, Pure Clan performed well, but fell just short of keeping up with the top 3-year-old fillies in the country, running second in the Honeybee and third in the Fantasy at Oaklawn Park behind the ill-fated Eight Belles, and running third at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Oaks behind Proud Spell.

Facing no such rival in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Regret Stakes at Churchill Downs, Pure Clan may find it is her time to shine - if she can transfer her sharp dirt form to turf for the 1 1/8-mile Regret.

The evidence is mixed whether she could regress with the switch in surfaces. Pure Clan is 2 for 2 on grass, having won a maiden race at Ellis Park and an allowance at Keeneland last fall, but those races earned her the lowest Beyer Speed Figures of her career.

Granted, those were her first two races, and the low figures may have been a result of youth and inexperience.

She did win those two races handily, particularly her debut, in which she scored by 7 3/4 lengths over Absolutely Cindy, a future two-time stakes winner and another Regret entrant.

Julien Leparoux rides Pure Clan, the 7-5 favorite on the track's morning line.

Zee Zee, winner of the Edgewood Stakes over next-out allowance winner My Baby Baby, is the second choice at 2-1.

Clearly Foxy and C J's Leelee also figure prominently, after finishing one-two in a fast second-level allowance May 23.

C J's Leelee is a candidate to improve in her second start off a layoff. Having that race "ought to put her in the thick of it," said trainer Ken McPeek.

Clearly Foxy, meanwhile, appears to be back running to the potential she flashed last year when she won the Grade 3 Natalma at Woodbine.