Sconsin gears up for big campaign in Winning Colors

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s a little more than five months to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. Time for Sconsin to get to work on making that Nov. 5 race at Keeneland.

“We’re excited to get her campaign kicked off at home,” trainer Greg Foley said of Sconsin making her 5-year-old debut Monday in the Grade 3 Winning Colors at Churchill Downs.

Sconsin, with leading jockey Tyler Gaffalione riding, will break from post 3 when facing five other fillies and mares in the $200,000 Winning Colors, which anchors a nine-race Memorial Day card that starts at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. The bay daughter of Include was a 3 1/4-length winner of this six-furlong race last year and is the 6-5 morning-line favorite this time.

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Sconsin, owned by the Lloyd Madison Farms partnership headed by Fred Schwartz, has been on a steady work pattern since April 1, with the latest being a half-mile drill in 48.60 seconds last weekend.

“We had success in this race last year and thought it would be a good spot for her return,” said Foley. “We gave her the winter off and she just wasn’t quite ready to return to Grade 1 competition last month” in the Madison at Keeneland or the Derby City Distaff at Churchill. “She was one of the first horses we sent home from Fair Grounds because we know how much she likes it in Kentucky.”

Sconsin, fourth behind Gamine in the 2020 BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland, would have two or three more starts after the Winning Colors trying to make it back to that seven-furlong race.

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Away since winning the Open Mind at Churchill more than eight months ago, Sconsin has earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 96 or higher in five of her last eight starts, numbers far superior to those of her Monday opponents. Novel Squall (post 2, Brian Hernandez Jr.), the 5-2 second choice on the program, got a career-best 90 when prevailing in a four-horse field in a Keeneland allowance last month.

Besides Novel Squall, trained by John Ortiz, the Winning Colors lineup also includes Li’l Tootsie and a second Ortiz filly, Joyful Cadence, as plausible upsetters. Tipsy Gal and Euphoric round out the cast.

Derby winner in public

Rich Strike is scheduled to breeze between the fifth and sixth races, about 3 p.m., Monday at Churchill before leaving the following day for New York, where the Kentucky Derby winner will make his next start in the June 11 Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park.

As of early Saturday, Rich Strike was one of at least 11 3-year-olds in consideration for the Belmont. Barber Road, sixth in the Derby, breezed five furlongs in 1:01.20 seconds in a company work Saturday at Churchill for Ortiz and will work here again next Saturday before leaving for the Belmont.