Echo Sound has made two wrong moves in her career, both coming when she ran back relatively quickly compared to the rest of her schedule. Following one such defeat last out in the Grade 1 Test Stakes, Echo Sound is back at her old Kentucky home as a standout in the Grade 3, $300,000 Dogwood Stakes for 3-year-old fillies going seven furlongs on Saturday at Churchill Downs.
The Dogwood is the lone graded event on a card with four stakes for 3-year-olds, with both sprint and route options for colts and fillies. The Dogwood’s companion race for fillies is the $175,000 Seneca Overnight at 1 1/16 miles, which features Eclipse Award champion Immersive. The open races are the $300,000 Bourbon Flight at 1 3/16 miles, highlighted by a familiar name from the spring classics – Chunk of Gold – and the $300,000 Harrods Creek at seven furlongs.
Echo Sound made four starts in Kentucky as a juvenile, winning three, including an allowance at Churchill and the Myrtlewood at Keeneland. About five weeks after the Myrtlewood, she was second in the Fern Creek at Churchill.
Echo Sound was sharp to start this season after a winter break, winning the Grade 3 Miss Preakness by two lengths on May 16 and then cruising to a sharp 4 1/4-length win in the Grade 3 Victory Ride on July 3 at Saratoga, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 101. Off that career-best effort, she was favored in the prestigious Test at Saratoga a little more than four weeks later.
Echo Sound may have bounced in the Test, and did not respond well to running back quickly. In contention, she faded to sixth in the stretch. Trainer Rusty Arnold said following the race that she was a bit tired at the barn the next day.
Echo Sound has seemingly responded well since her return home, and to the freshening. She has been working strongly at Arnold’s Keeneland base.
Echo Sound is the only graded stakes winner in the Dogwood, although two others are coming off graded placings at Saratoga. Ragtime, making just her third career start in the Test, rallied wide, led, and was caught by a neck. Her blinkers will be removed for this race as she continues to develop. Delightful Claire, in her own third career start, was second in the Grade 3 Prioress on Aug. 30.
Seneca Overnight
In theory, the Seneca Overnight, with the smallest purse of the day’s four stakes, is an undercard event, but it has drawn one of the day’s leading ladies in what will be a key race for Immersive in her third start off a seven-month layoff.
Immersive, a Godolphin homebred trained by Brad Cox, secured the divisional championship last year by winning all four of her starts, including three Grade 1s highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Bone bruising kept her from targeting the major spring races.
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Immersive got back on the work tab in May and had six breezes going into the Monomoy Girl in June at Churchill. She finished a game second, beaten a neck by Take Charge Milady, while in tight on the inside in a stretch duel.
Off that effort, she appeared poised to move forward but was second, beaten 15 1/2 lengths by Scottish Lassie in a field of four in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks in July at Saratoga.
“I thought her first run off the layoff was pretty good,” Cox said. “She was 80 to 90 percent ready, and got a bottled-up trip that day but ran well. I don’t know what to make of the last race. We were beaten a long way by obviously a very good filly, a multiple Grade 1 winner, who we had beaten before.
“We shipped her back to Churchill, and this filly has trained well. We need to figure out where we are with her, if she’s wanting to be a racehorse at the top level. We’re going to find out if that’s what she wants to do. I hope it is. She’s trained well, her works have been fantastic. We’ll see if she wants to get the job done on Saturday.”
Quickick was second to Immersive in the Alcibiades last fall and third in the BC Juvenile Fillies. In her most recent outing, Quickick was up to win the Iowa Oaks by a nose on July 5. The diminutive filly was given plenty of time off following that stout effort.
– additional reporting by David Grening
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