The $250,000 Keertana Stakes is the Saturday feature at Churchill Downs – but not by a wide margin.
Not when the 10-race program includes a stakes-class turf sprint allowance worth $141,000, a second-level allowance with a $134,000 purse, and a first-level allowance offering up $127,000 in available money. Throw in a couple $120,000 maiden special weights and total purses on the program, including Kentucky incentives, top the $1 million mark. That’s remarkable for a relatively nondescript “between Triple Crown races” Saturday.
One might like to imagine the richest race on such a card would stand out, but the Keertana does not. A 1 1/2-mile grass contest for older fillies and mares, the Keertana drew eight entrants, nary a stakes winner among them.
The morning line has Tarneema listed as the 3-1 favorite, and while several of these turf marathoners could wind up favored, Tarneema doesn’t look like one of them. Seven races into her career and Tarneema has scored but one win, a Fair Grounds maiden turf route in February 2024. She went favored last time at just less than 2-1 in a Keeneland first-level allowance over 1 1/2 miles but finished third, and it’s hard to see why that race’s winner, Sugaree, wouldn’t come up a shorter price than Tarneema in the Keertana.
Logically, the three horses coming out of a Keeneland second-level allowance last month, another grass race contested at 1 1/2 miles, ought to stand a better chance than those operating a rung down the class ladder. Boss Lady Bailey, Holy Foley, and Marksman Queen finished a respective first, third, and fourth, but while Marksman Queen was last among the group, she probably ran best.
Making her first start in about three months, Marksman Queen got too much of a very strong pace and paid the price for it late in the race. Sitting second of 12 while a horse named Sanctify all but ran off with her jockey through a half-mile split of 47.25, far too fast for the distance, Marksman Queen inherited the lead before the half-mile pole when Sanctify stopped quickly.
She didn’t ease to the front, however, as another rival rushed up to her outside, moving much too early considering the tempo. Marksman Queen shrugged her off, held up into the final furlong, and in the end was beaten less than three lengths, the other pace players nowhere to be found.
Enthusiasm for Marksman Queen, Frankie Dettori riding for trainer Graham Motion, would run higher had the English import not lost 10 in a row since winning her North American debut in December 2023. She does stay, however, is stakes-placed, and probably can set or press a considerably slower pace than the one at Keeneland.
Strikingly Spun never has raced beyond 1 5/16 miles but has competitive stakes form and speed figures, and has looked in her shorter races like a mare who might handle this marathon trip.
◗ Race 5, the high-level turf sprint, drew just six entrants, among them Nobals, winner of the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, and his Larry Rivelli-trained stablemate One Timer, another stakes-class turf sprinter. Rivelli scratched both horses from the $600,000 Twin Spires Turf Sprint on Derby Day.
Race 8, a second-level dirt sprint allowance also open to $80,000 claimers and restricted to females, brings out – hopefully – Lotsandlotsofcandy. Fourth-time starter Lotsandlotsofcandy hasn’t raced since last summer, when she romped in a pair of dirt sprints while earning Beyer Speed Figures of 94 and 90. Trainer Paul McGee had Lotsandlotsofcandy entered at Keeneland last month but had to scratch the filly.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.