This year, Beaumont could set up for Kentucky Oaks

The Grade 3, $100,000 Beaumont Stakes, usually held in April at Keeneland, always awards a handful of points toward the Kentucky Oaks a few weeks hence. However, as a one-turn event, the field is typically populated by sprinters or late-blooming fillies making their stakes debuts, with little impact on the filly classic. The last Beaumont winner to appear in the Oaks was Diplomat Lady, who finished 13th in 2006.

This year, however, the placement of the seven-furlong Beaumont in Keeneland’s unprecedented July meeting could set the field’s standouts – the well-bred and late-blooming Four Graces and the comebacking Grade 1 winner Wicked Whisper – onto various paths. They could use the race as a springboard into major summer sprints, such as the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga. But the Beaumont awards points toward the Sept. 4 Kentucky Oaks on the 20-8-4-2 scale – and with additional time before the Oaks, there is still time for a filly out of the Beaumont to attempt a longer race as a final prep and move ahead on that road.

Four Graces, who began her career in March, is a perfect 3 for 3 at seven furlongs. Her only career loss came when fourth in a one-mile allowance at Gulfstream. She comes into the Beaumont off a front-running 2 1/2-length victory in the Grade 3 Dogwood at Churchill on June 6.

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The Dogwood victory gave Four Graces 20 points toward the Oaks. The daughter of Majesticperfection – a Grade 1-winning sprinter who sired 2015 Kentucky Oaks winner Lovely Maria – is a half-sister to McCraken, who Ian Wilkes trained to multiple graded stakes wins around two turns, and to graded stakes-placed turf router Bondurant.

“This entire family is extremely talented, so it was very rewarding to get her a stakes win,” Wilkes said. “I thought she was going to have to go faster to get the lead, but it ended up working out for us with the early pace scenario. We had no other choice but to show speed because of her post on the inside.”

Julien Leparoux, aboard for the Dogwood win, rides her in the Beaumont. Wilkes also saddles Turtle Trax, second in a six-furlong allowance last out to Frank’s Rockette, who came back to win the Grade 3 Victory Ride last weekend at Belmont.

Wicked Whisper won her first two career starts for Steve Asmussen, including the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes going a one-turn mile at Belmont over Frank’s Rockette, in which she earned 10 points toward the Oaks. Her Beyer Speed Figure of 87 for that effort matches the career best for Four Graces. She then finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita, and is making her first start since.

Wicked Whisper, from the first crop of Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map, is a half to two stakes winners, including last year’s Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan winner Point of Honor, who is multiple Grade 1 placed in major route events.

Speech, who has tangled with some of the division’s heavyweights, including Swiss Skydiver and Gamine, was cross-entered in Saturday’s Grade 1 Ashland Stakes around two turns, and was expected to scratch from the Beaumont to run in that spot.