Chad Brown trained Raging Sea, the winner of the 2024 Doubledogdare Stakes. Bill Mott won the year before with Frost Point. In 2022, it was the Todd Pletcher-trained Malathaat capturing the Doubledogdare, a year after Bonny South won for trainer Brad Cox.
Seven older fillies and mares were entered in the Grade 3, $350,000 Doubledogdare, Keeneland’s Friday feature, and that quartet of trainers – two already in the Hall of Fame, two others future Hall of Famers – send out four of them.
Pletcher trains Candied, the 8-5 morning-line favorite, who makes her first start since a third-place Breeders’ Cup Distaff finish. Tarifa, trained by Cox, exits a third in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile. Just F Y I, who goes for Mott, makes her second start after a nine-month layoff. The Brown-trained Occult is the sleeper among the group.
Two others look implausible, while Gin Gin is impossible. Dreaming of Mo brings decent synthetic-surface form but hasn’t finished in the money in two fast-track dirt starts. Neon Icon, an age-restricted allowance-race winner last fall at Keeneland, rates the best chance among the outsiders, but not much of one.
Candied won the Grade 1 Alcibiades two autumns ago at Keeneland, with circumstances compromising her in two subsequent local starts. Making her 3-year-old debut last April in the Grade 1 Ashland, Candied got caught very wide in both turns, finishing fourth. It was the only race among her nine where she finished worse than third. In the Grade 1 Spinster last October, Candied paid the price for chasing pacesetting winner Idiomatic when Occult came late to nip her for second.
“She’s come around physically, done well, had a good winter and spring,” Pletcher said this week.
Pletcher tried Candied in blinkers for the first time in the BC Distaff and saw enough to stick with the equipment change. Candied missed by a head in another Grade 1, last summer’s Alabama at Saratoga, and might be a notch away from reaching the very top of her division.
“We felt like the blinkers might be something, as she’s physically matured, to maybe push her along a little bit,” Pletcher said.
Changing leads in the homestretch, something Candied rarely does in races, also could push her along. Pletcher believes lead changes “can be overrated,” but he added that Candied has changed leads more consistently in her works this winter.
There’s public video of Occult’s March 16 work at Payson Park. Breezing outside Raging Sea, second in the BC Distaff and bound for the Grade 1 La Troienne next month, Occult was under stout restraint to the wire while Raging Sea’s rider nudged her along to stay even. Occult galloped out like a filly sitting on a top effort.
Occult brings a seven-race losing streak to her 4-year-old debut but ran one of her best races in the 1 1/8-mile Spinster, her lone Keeneland start, and has gone 4-1-0-3 at the Doubledogdare’s 1 1/16-mile trip.
Tarifa’s lone Keeneland start, a winning debut, came in October 2023, and she need not improve much from her third in the March 8 Beholder Mile to contend. Making her first start since November, Tarifa got stuck three wide on both turns and was caught somewhat flat-footed before the three-eighths marker when two Bob Baffert fillies, Richi and Cavalieri, quickened the tempo in front of her. There was no shame losing to those two – Cavalieri could challenge Thorpedo Anna for the division lead – and Tarifa finished decently after leveling off.
Just F Y I went favored last May in the Kentucky Oaks but finished a distant second behind Thorpedo Anna. Beaten more than 20 lengths June 7 in the Acorn Stakes, Just F Y I didn’t post a timed workout again until January and didn’t race until March 13. Going a one-turn mile, Just F Y I set the pace before tiring – understandably – to finish second, and she could prove tough to catch going to the lead from post 1 in the Doubledogdare.
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