Judge a horse by the company she keeps and Bourbon Breeze rates an upset chance in the featured eighth race Sunday at Churchill.

Granted, she was hard ridden just to stay in contact with him to the wire, but Bourbon Breeze on May 23 worked in company with Grade 2-winning sprinter World Record.

That ambitious morning assignment came following back-to-back wins from Bourbon Breeze after trainer Rodolphe Brisset dropped a $30,000 claim on the Omaha Beach filly for his September Farm and Michael Motley’s Motley Crew Stable.

Thorpedo Anna won the 2024 Kentucky Oaks on a Friday, and the following evening Mystik Dan won the Kentucky Derby. The two classic winners trained by Kenny McPeek are on target to race on the same card once again at Churchill Downs.

They’re coming to these June 28 starts from very different places – and ironically.

Wesley Ward said during the third week of May that his Royal Ascot plans hinged on a 2-year-old colt named Outfielder. If Outfielder ran to expectations in a maiden turf sprint May 23 at Churchill, he’d head whatever team Ward decided to send overseas. Outfielder did run to expectations, and he was the hinge point for Ward’s Royal Ascot participation. But Ward, for the first time since 2012, is not sending anyone to the five-day Royal Ascot meeting that begins Tuesday.

Redistricting might be a top-class middle-distance turf horse, but even in June of his 5-year-old season, that’s still hard to say.

Two years into his career, Redistricting has raced only eight times. His ninth start comes Saturday at Monmouth Park in the $150,000 Monmouth Stakes. A rainy forecast means the Monmouth turf easily could be softer than firm. And firm, trainer Chad Brown knows, is what Redistricting wants. But Brown said he could keep the horse in the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth even over a wet course.

“I might have to at this point. He needs to run,” Brown said.

The 74th running of the Grade 3 Delaware Oaks on Saturday will coincide with the first running of the $200,000 Delaware Derby, a new stakes race at Delaware Park intended to attract top 3-year-olds at the start of their summer season. Admiral Dennis, fourth-place finisher in the Grade 1 Blue Grass, will be the inaugural morning-line favorite Saturday.

“He’s been a little sluggish from the gate in a few of his starts,” Cox said. “I think it’s important that he breaks well.”

Brad Cox trained champion Monomoy Girl to win the 2018 Kentucky Oaks. Last weekend at Saratoga, the Cox-trained Good Cheer, who won this year’s Oaks, lost for the first time in eight career starts, finishing a flat fifth as the 3-10 favorite in the Acorn Stakes. One week later, the Cox-trained filly who went into this past winter the Oaks favorite, Immersive, resumes her career Saturday following a half-year layoff in the Monomoy Girl Stakes at Churchill Downs.

The circumstances are heavily “Coxified” – but not as heavy as Immersive’s favoritism in the $175,000 Monomoy Girl.

Garamond will probably face just five foes when he starts as the heavy favorite Saturday at Monmouth Park in the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes.

He met only two in his most recent outing. But it was the thumping he gave overwhelming favorite Cornucopian in that April 27 Aqueduct allowance race that motivated trainer Chad Brown to send Garamond to New Jersey for the Pegasus.

Restricted to 3-year-olds and contested at 1 1/16 miles, the Pegasus serves as a prep for the $1 million Haskell Stakes next month, and Brown had that race firmly in mind when he chose this one.

Bishops Bay has been the favorite in eight of his nine career starts and he again looks to be the chalk Saturday, when he attempts to win his fourth consecutive race in the Grade 3, $150,000 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park.

Sosua Summer’s ability to transfer his sharp turf form to the synthetic track for new connections off the claim could prove the key to the outcome of Saturday’s 10th event at Gulfstream Park. Carded at five furlongs over the Tapeta surface, it is the second of two lower-level optional-claiming and allowance races on the program. The first will be decided by fillies and mares going one mile on the grass.

The co-features will be the fourth and fifth legs of the Rainbow 6 sequence. There is a mandatory payout of the entire pool scheduled for Sunday.