Shantisara could get perfect stalking trip in Fall Harvest Stakes

LEXINGTON, Ky. – As thousands of ontrack fans file through the exit gates after the Breeders’ Cup Classic is run Saturday at Keeneland, others will stick around for one more trip to the mutuel windows.

“Never say die till the last-race tri,” some might say.

The $350,000 Fall Harvest, a new turf race for fillies and mares, serves as the nightcap of Breeders’ Cup week as the last of 12 Saturday races. Shantisara and Technical Analysis, a pair of 4-year-old Irish-bred fillies trained by Chad Brown, are the morning-line favorites over Grade 1 winner Dalika in a field of eight going a two-turn mile.

Shantisara won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup over the Keeneland turf a little more than a year ago, and has raced just once since that breakthrough score, finishing second in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley here in April before being vanned off. Brown said the filly got time off afterward and has resumed training in steady and untroubled fashion, as evidenced by eight workouts at three different venues since early September.

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Flavien Prat, fresh from what many fans and experts are predicting will be an exhilarating experience aboard Flightline in the BC Classic (race 11), is named to ride Shantisara from post 5. A reliable stalking style to fit the apparent race shape figures to her benefit, given that both Technical Analysis (post 7, Jose Ortiz) and Dalika (post 4, Brian Hernandez Jr.) are front-running types liable to engage each other in a prolonged battle up top.

Technical Analysis was fourth last month behind her stablemates and 1-2 finishers In Italian and Regal Glory in the Grade 1 First Lady at Keeneland. She was unable to complete an all-Brown trifecta when edged for third in the final jumps by Princess Grace. Technical Analysis is a four-time graded winner who was second behind Shantisara in the QE II here last fall.

Despite likely pace competition from Technical Analysis, trainer Al Stall Jr. won’t fix what isn’t broke with Dalika. A wire-to-wire winner of the Grade 1 Beverly D. in August at Churchill Downs, the gray German-bred mare “is absolutely at the top of her game right now,” Stall said.

“She’s going to be free-running, as always,” he said. “She’ll definitely be there or thereabouts when they spring the latch.”

Dalika turned back Princess Grace in a sustained stretch drive not only to win the Beverly D., but also the Grade 3 Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf on Sept. 10 in her only subsequent start, lifting her career bankroll to nearly $1.3 million, all for the Bal Mar Equine of retired Brown-Forman CEO Paul Varga.

“We’re very happy with our horse,” Stall said. “We were excited to see this new race on the calendar. We’ve been pointing to this as soon as we found out about it.”

The purse for the Fall Harvest includes $50,000 in bonuses restricted to registered Kentucky-breds, meaning all three favorites will be competing for the equivalent of $300,000. Irish-bred Wakanaka (post 2, Joel Rosario) also is ineligible for the added money, while the other four are all Kentucky-bred, those being Stolen Holiday, Burning Ambition, Henrietta Topham, and Sunny One.

Post time for the Fall Harvest is 6:20 p.m. Eastern. Sunset is 6:35.

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