On Saturday at Laurel Park, the featured race is the $100,000 Willa on the Move Stakes. The six furlong race will be contested on the main track and has drawn a field of eight fillies and mares.
Lady Sabelia has been tabbed as the morning line favorite at odds of 2-5 for trainer Robin Graham. A five-year-old daughter of Majestic Warrior, she has been on the board in fifteen of her seventeen starts and is a nine-time career winner. This will be her third appearance in the Willa on the Move Stakes – she was third in 2013 and won the race last year. She was last seen winning the Pumpkin Pie Stakes at Belmont Park and will have Horacio Karamanos aboard from post seven.
Second choice at morning line odds of 6-1 is Galiana for trainer Jose Rodriguez. A five-year-old daughter of Stonesider, the chestnut mare has won half of her thirty starts and is a multiple stakes winner. She has five wins from eleven starts this year and was last seen finishing third in the Fabulous Strike Stakes. Abel Lezcano will be aboard and they are scheduled to break from post position six.
Also in the field at morning line odds of 12-1 is Lionhearted Lady for trainer Hamilton Smith. Bred in Maryland, the four-year-old daughter of Lion Heart has been on the board in nine of her sixteen starts and is a four-time winner. She notched her first career stakes win last time out in the Maryland Million Distaff Handicap and will go for two in a row with Xavier Perez aboard from the outside post.
There will always be Kentucky Derby entrants that would be much better suited to skip the race entirely and find a better spot if not for the gusto of their well-meaning owners, but the Road to the Derby point qualifying system has been remarkably efficient at making the race more of a level-playing field since its inception four years ago.
On Saturday at Keeneland, the featured race is the $250,000 Dixiana Elkhorn Stakes. Scheduled to be run at one mile on the turf, the Grade 2 event has drawn a field of eight colts and geldings.
With a largely underwhelming, and thus far, slow, group of three year-olds set to contest the 2016 Kentucky Derby, logical handicappers searching for a pick outside of the undefeated and likely highly-favored Nyquist may have already begun the hand-wringing process.
On Friday at Oaklawn Park, the featured race is the $600,000 Apple Blossom Stakes. Restricted to fillies and mares, the Grade 1 event will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth on the main track and has drawn a field of six.
Kentucky Derby Points System Doing Its Job
08 May 2016There will always be Kentucky Derby entrants that would be much better suited to skip the race entirely and find a better spot if not for the gusto of their well-meaning owners, but the Road to the Derby point qualifying system...
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