Thank You Marylou heads full field in Raven Run
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Full fields for a terrific Saturday card at Keeneland are typified by what the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes has to offer: 13 3-year-old fillies, including some of the better ones in the East and Midwest, in a middle-distance niche.
Graded stakes winners Thank You Marylou, Cassatt, Miss Behaviour, and Sweet Whiskey form the core of favorites for a seven-furlong race that also drew a handful of up-and-comers, making the $150,000 Raven Run a real beauty in its first running on dirt since 2005.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 11 Miss Behaviour. Trainer Phil Schoenthal is 22-6-6-1 with a $2.66 ROI over the past five years in dirt sprints with last-out winners. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
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“It looks like a really deep race, so it should give us a good read on our horse,” said Mike Maker, who sends out one of the race favorites in the recent Dogwood Stakes winner Thank You Marylou, a possibility for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
Although field size has been something of an issue here this fall – averaging 8.5 horses per race through nine of 17 days – that’s not the case Saturday. There are 109 horses (including five also-eligibles) on the 10-race card.
The Raven Run, named for a 374-acre nature sanctuary outside Lexington, goes as the ninth race. First post is 1:05 p.m. Eastern, with the feature set for 5:13.
Key contenders
Thank You Marylou (Last 3 Beyers: 92-87-66)
* Filly named in honor of Marylou Whitney was equipped with blinkers for the first time when breaking through with a huge effort in a Dogwood Stakes romp four Saturdays ago.
Pirate’s Trove (Last 3 Beyers: 92-79-95)
* Trainer Mike Stidham said he “kind of stumbled on” this undefeated filly showing an apparently newfound fondness for dirt with two sharp breezes over the new Keeneland dirt surface.
Cassatt (Last 3 Beyers: 83-82-78)
* Rick Porter and Larry Jones held out hope for running this gray filly in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff until she finished fifth in the Grade 1 Cotillion.
“Now we’re only concerned about this race,” said Porter of Fox Hill Farms.
Miss Behaviour (Last 3 Beyers: 92-86-91)
* Pennsylvania-bred filly has shown real brilliance for her Maryland connections, already having won four stakes. They’re bypassing the BC Filly and Mare Sprint this year while hoping to make it back to Keeneland for that race in 2015.
Sweet Whiskey (Last 3 Beyers: 81-90-92)
* If this Todd Pletcher-trained filly is going to factor into this from her favorable outside post, it’s mandatory that she revert to some of her better efforts (Old Hat, Acorn stakes) while rebounding off two of her worst (Test, Prioress stakes).
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 10 La Madrina. Trainer Shug McGaughey is 12-0-0-1 over the past five years in sprint stakes races (6-0-0-1 in graded stakes). Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 6 Divided Attention. Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is 14-4-2-2 with a $3.29 ROI over the past five years in dirt sprint graded stakes following a win and a layoff of between 31 and 60 days. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan