A wet weather forecast and a cold pace scenario complicate analysis of the $250,000 Keertana Stakes on Saturday at Churchill Downs, where more than an inch of rain could fall between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon.
Regardless of conditions, the seven-entrant Keertana is forecast to unfold at a snail’s pace.
Seven older fillies and mares went into the Keertana, a 1 1/2-mile turf race run around three turns, and Ayra Stark’s 9-5 morning-line favoritism stems in great part because, on paper, she’s the controlling pace.
But connections might not want Ayra Stark leading after she set the pace and was run down late in her last two starts, both 1 1/2-mile Gulfstream Park turf contests.
One can forgive Ayra Stark’s March 28 defeat in the Orchid, where she set a relatively fast pace after making an early lead and, oddly, sucked back to third midway around the last turn.
“Watching it, I thought I ran a short horse,” trainer Horacio De Paz said. Ayra Stark’s jockey told De Paz he had given his mount a breather. “Usually that happens before you’re trying to get position for the finish.”
Ayra Stark retook the lead before Keertana foe Sultana, rallying wide, ran her down. But in the 1 1/2-mile Christophe Clement two months earlier at Gulfstream, Ayra Stark set a slow tempo and had no answer for Speed Shopper’s late move.
De Paz remains convinced Ayra Stark stays 1 1/2 miles.
“It’s just been circumstances,” he said. What if the compromising circumstance is leading? “She breaks good. It’s hard to get her back.”
Ayra Stark likely runs regardless of conditions. De Paz is inclined to try her on a wet course, and Ayra Stark, a successful dirt horse in Argentina, probably wins if the Keertana is rained off turf.
Sultana ships Thursday from trainer Kevin Attard’s base at Woodbine, where Sultana made her five starts before the Orchid. While Sultana races in a hood over her ears to mitigate a tendency toward nervousness, Attard doesn’t believe Sultana’s first shipping experience poses an issue. A lack of pace might. TimeformUS pace figures have Sultana rallying into a fast tempo in each of her three straight wins.
Five-year-old Sultana only truly found a niche her last two starts. A four-time winner from six starts, Sultana didn’t debut until May of her 4-year-old season, ending it with a successful stakes debut in the Maple Leaf over 1 1/4 miles, her first try at a true distance of ground. She ran even better in the 12-furlong Orchid.
“She’s a long, strapping filly. The farther she goes, the better she is,” Attard said.
Sultana has gone 4-2-1-1 over Woodbine’s synthetic surface but is 2 for 2 on turf and moved like a better horse in the Orchid than the Maple Leaf, run over Woodbine’s Tapeta.
“Arguably, last season her best race was her turf allowance. She had an explosive turn of foot,” Attard said.
One wouldn’t call it explosive, but Golden Sunshine made a sustained run for second last month in the Grade 3 Bewitch at Keeneland, her first three-turn start and first race at a distance as far as 1 1/2 miles. Running for the first time in 10 weeks, Golden Sunshine dropped back to last of eight, saving ground into the stretch and gaining steadily on victorious Speed Shopper, probably the best of the 1 1/2-mile Florida grass females this winter.
Four-year-old Golden Sunshine, a Godolphin homebred by Medaglia d’Oro, made five starts as a 2-year-old and has already raced 14 times, but she’s only now maturing, and long-distance grass racing probably elevates her ceiling.
“She’s a very, very big filly, has a huge shoulder and a very deep girth, which usually suggests distance and stamina,” said trainer Eoin Harty. “I thought she’d win at Keeneland. I think she has several graded stakes in her, and I think there’s one at the highest level if we get lucky.”
Virgin Colada races with blinkers removed after getting out badly at the head of the backstretch in the Bewitch, her rider easing her. She nonetheless rates about an equal chance with Awesomesauce, who makes her stakes debut in her first try beyond nine furlongs.
Queen’s Command got within a neck of Sultana in the Maple Leaf, probably the high-water mark in this 7-year-old’s 21-start career.
Venencia is the Keertana entrant with proven wet-turf form, but she hasn’t approached her best self in four starts since being purchased at auction last fall and changing barns. Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. takes blinkers off Venencia after she pulled too hard during the middle stages of the Bewitch.
Way to Be Marie could improve upon her Bewitch third, though her first try in a three-turn race hinted two turns might prove a better trip.
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