Top contenders enter Jack Bishop Stakes fresh

Pinch Hit, Dreamcall, and Divine Dutchess are drawn in posts 1, 2, and 3 for the $50,000 Jack Bishop Stakes on Friday night at Prairie Meadows, and they appear to be the three principal players in this two-turn dirt stakes for fillies and mares.

The Brad Cox-trained Pinch Hit ships in from Churchill Downs following a seven-month layoff to make her first start of 2018. Pinch Hit needed a drop to $40,000 maiden-claiming to notch her first win in March 2017 but progressed steadily last year, winning the $100,000 Dogwood Stakes in September at Churchill. Pinch Hit ran last summer in the Gardenia Stakes at Ellis Park, a one-mile race around roughly 1 1/2 turns, but the Jack Bishop marks her first true two-turn try since a maiden race long ago at Fair Grounds.

Dreamcall isn’t a stakes winner but holds a recency edge on Pinch Hit, though she also exits a layoff. Trained by Steve Asmussen, Dreamcall most recently won a second-level allowance race March 3 at Oaklawn but got a great pace setup in that start and is a one-run closer in need of pace help and racing luck.

The locally based Divine Dutchess, trained by Boyd Caster, appears to be working encouragingly for her first start at age 5 and had a strong summer of 2017 at Prairie Meadows, winning two allowance races and finishing a close third in the $100,000 Iowa Distaff, won by the Asmussen-trained Danzatrice.

The Jack Bishop is carded as race 8 at 9:07 p.m. Central.