Three allowances highlight Sunday card
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With just one stakes remaining at a dwindling spring meet at Keeneland, three first-level allowances will serve as co-features on a nine-race Sunday card that starts at 1:05 p.m. Eastern.
Each carries a purse of up to $76,000, including Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund bonuses.
Perhaps the deepest of the trio is race 8, a 1 1/2-mile turf race that drew an oversubscribed lineup of older horses. Focus Group, trained by Chad Brown, could come favored when he breaks from post 11 under Jose Ortiz despite having been away nearly six months.
The other allowances are a turf sprint for 3-year-old fillies (race 4) and a main-track sprint for 3-year-olds (race 7).
After Sunday, the final three-day stretch of the meet starts Wednesday, with the Grade 3 Bewitch highlighting the 10-race Friday finale. Churchill starts its spring meet Saturday evening.
Jones here for the duration
Since 2005, Larry Jones has made Delaware Park his primary base, except for 2012, when he kept Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can in Kentucky. Jones, who won with three of his first seven starters here this spring, said an immigration scare (since resolved) at Delaware was a factor in convincing him to return to his home state after Fair Grounds closed last month.
“It was going to be hard to get help, and I just decided to make the move back here,” said Jones, a native of Hopkinsville, Ky. “We’ll have about 45 head split between Keeneland and Churchill. I’m happy to be back.”
$10M in Ky. Downs purses
Officials at Kentucky Downs have announced that purses will total as much as $10 million when the five-day boutique meet is run Sept. 1-13 at the turf-only course in south-central Kentucky.
A newly created race, the $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Turf Sprint, becomes the 14th stakes. Last year, Kentucky Downs purses totaled more than $8.6 million, including KTDF bonuses.
◗ Four-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Javier Castellano will be idle for the last three days of the meet (Wednesday to Friday) as he serves a suspension stemming from his ride last Saturday aboard Bird’s Eye View, who was disqualified from first to fourth for interference.
◗ The memorial service for Mike Hargrave, the longtime stall superintendent at Churchill, is set for Monday at noon in the track’s Triple Crown Room. Hargrave died in January at age 69.
