Vahva has Pink Ribbon up next with sights on a Breeders' Cup do-over
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It’s not that the Chicago Stakes on Saturday night at Churchill Downs was a make-or-break race for the 5-year-old mare Vahva. Or was it? Vahva had not won since the 2024 Chicago, ran flat in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, and in her first start since that race finished seventh, beaten more than a dozen lengths, in the Derby City Distaff on Derby Day. Granted, the Derby City Distaff featured an absolutely stellar field and was contested over a sloppy track, but Vahva still had something to prove in the Chicago – and she proved it.
Not only did Vahva win, she showed just about as much early speed as during any race among the 17 in her career yet had plenty left to stave off a run from Claret Beret and win by three-quarters of a length. The 97 Beyer Speed Figure she earned doesn’t fall far from the top figures she earned late in 2023 and last summer.
“Just glad she came back,” trainer Cherie DeVaux said. “Really, it’s a question when you bring them back from any lengthy layoff, especially fillies, if they enjoyed their vacation too much. Plus, she was off form at the end of last year.”
Vahva now has won 7 of 17 starts with earnings of $1.99 million, but if she goes over the $2 million mark in her next start, it won’t be at Saratoga. Vahva’s connections didn’t think she loved the Saratoga surface last summer, and waiting for her there in one-turn older filly-and-mare stakes is Ways and Means, who popped a 111 Beyer in her most recent run. Instead, DeVaux said, Vahva has the $250,000 Pink Ribbon Stakes, a two-turn seven-furlong contest Aug. 22 at Charles Town, as her next goal. Vahva scored a course-and-distance win there two summers ago in the Charles Town Oaks. And now that Vahva has regained her form, DeVaux will eye a return trip to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
And speaking of returns, the 5-year-old Cagliostro not only resides again in DeVaux’s barn at Keeneland, he’s entered to start on Sunday’s closing-day Churchill card in the $300,000 Hanshin, a race Cagliostro won last year. Wathnan Racing purchased Cagliostro in 2024 and this winter sent him to trainer Fawzi Nass in Dubai, Cagliostro finishing a competitive third at Meydan in the Group 3 Firebreak on Jan. 24, just 20 days after he’d posted a Keeneland workout for Devaux. Fourth in a March start, Cagliostro got sick and had to be scratched from the Godolphin Mile on April 5 and soon after was sent back to DeVaux at Keeneland. He worked May 9 but shortly thereafter was gelded, DeVaux said. Two June works and Cagliostro is ready enough for a repeat bid in the Hanshin, a one-turn mile.
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