There is racing elsewhere on Breeders’ Cup weekend – including Friday at Churchill Downs, which has played host to the big weekend nine times and which provides some hints to this year’s “Future Stars Friday” card at Del Mar.
Churchill’s Friday card has a first post of 1 p.m. Eastern, with the 10th and final race scheduled to go off at 6:45. Alongside its live racing, the track will host a watch party for both days of the Breeders’ Cup. The first of the five 2-year-old races on Breeders’ Cup Friday goes off at 5:45 p.m. Eastern, with the last of the five at 8:25. Wagering and viewing will be available in the simulcast area on the second floor of the Churchill clubhouse and in select dining spaces.
A pair of juvenile races on the Friday card perhaps offers some hints into Breeders’ Cup races later in the day. The fourth race is a $127,000 allowance for 2-year-old fillies going seven furlongs on the dirt. My Sweetheart is stakes-placed on both dirt, having finished second in the Schuylerville, and turf, a third in the Bolton Landing. In the Bolton Landing, the runner-up was Cy Fair, who came back to win the Algonquin at Woodbine and is given a big shot in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.
Carolyncaroline is dropping directly out of the Grade 2 Jessamine at Keeneland, in which she was a well-beaten seventh. The Jessamine’s top three finishers – Imaginationthelady, Infinite Sky, and Time to Dream – all run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday.
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The seventh race, a maiden special weight for fillies at seven furlongs on dirt, includes Cove Spring who has faced Imaginationthelady. Cove Spring was fourth behind Imaginationthelady, as well as another next-out winner, on debut. She was 10th in her next outing but moves from turf to dirt here.
Grazie Prego was sixth behind Ground Support in a turf maiden race two back, then was an improved third switching to dirt last out. Ground Support came back to win the Grade 2 Miss Grillo and is entered in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.
The co-features on Friday are a $141,000 turf-sprint allowance for 3-year-olds and a $134,000 allowance at a mile on turf for fillies and mares. The surface and field makeup for those will be in question, with rain and chilly temperatures expected in Kentucky on Wednesday and Thursday.
Asher honored
The late John Asher, Churchill’s vice president of communications who died unexpectedly in 2018 at age 62, was honored by the city of Louisville on Monday with a “Hometown Hero” banner in front of Presentation Academy, a school his daughters attended and which he championed for decades. Appropriately, the tower at the school where the banner was placed was designed by the same architectural firm that was involved with the twin spires at Churchill Downs.
The banner series honors celebrities and notable figures with Louisville roots. Asher joins the likes of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, jockey Pat Day, and journalist Diane Sawyer.
Asher, an award-winning radio journalist, joined Churchill Downs in 1997, and his deep passion for the Kentucky Derby and unwavering pride in the Louisville community made him synonymous with the track.
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