Kehoe Beach continued her rise through the 3-year-old filly turf-route ranks with a facile front-running victory Friday at Churchill Downs in the Grade 2, $300,000 Mrs. Revere Stakes.
Kehoe Beach won her third straight race and aced her stakes debut, going directly to the front under Frankie Dettori, who, frankly, never had an anxious moment in the 1 1/16-mile grass race for sophomore fillies.
Off moderate splits of 24.35 and 48.37, Kehoe Beach opened a two-length stretch call lead and bounded home a 1 1/4-length winner – and not an unexpected one, either, paying just $4.10 as the heavy favorite. Racing over a firm course, Kehoe Beach clocked 1:42.45.
Kehoe Beach hadn’t even raced two turns until she made her fourth career start over the summer at Ellis Park. Her trainer, Wesley Ward, ran Kehoe Beach in three sprints to begin her career, and the route at Ellis, in which Kehoe Beach finished a close second, marked her turf debut.
A turf horse Kehoe Beach has proved to be. Her second grass start yielded a course-record blowout going seven furlongs at Kentucky Downs, and at Keeneland in October, Kehoe Beach won a second-level turf-route allowance race by more than five lengths.
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While the last two wins came against older horses, the move Friday into age-restricted competition didn’t represent a class drop, the Mrs. Revere coming so late in the year and drawing some horses with real ability. None could close sufficient ground on Kehoe Beach, Dettori floating any potential pace rivals out into the center of the course going into the first turn and backing up the pace thereafter. Kehoe Beach, no runoff, rated along nicely and kicked clear when asked for more in upper stretch.
The front-runners had all the best of it, with 35-1 shot Pounce, who pressed from second the entire trip, winning a three-horse place photo. Poolside With Slim, winner of the Valley View at Keeneland last out under Dettori, finished a head back in third, with late-running second choice Minoushka flattening out slightly in the final half-furlong, a head behind Poolside With Slim.
Ward, who described Kehoe Beach as a large filly who needed time to grow into her frame, trains the winner for owner Thomas Bachman, whom Ward said he first took on as a client decades ago in California.
Kehoe Beach, bred in Kentucky by Joh Bates, Ron Kirk, and Michael Riordan, is a daughter of Omaha Beach and Sweet Awakening, by Street Cry. She’s fast, she’s talented, she’s won three in a row – and her best should be yet to come.
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