On Saturday at Santa Anita, the track will host the $300,000 Las Virgenes Stakes. Restricted to three-year-old fillies, the Grade 2 event will be contested at one mile and has drawn a field of seven.
Songbird headlines the field as the heavy favorite at odds of 1-5 for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. A dark bay daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, she will be making her much-anticipated three-year-old debut and has been freshened since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) in October to end her undefeated season with four victories and cement the Eclipse Award for Champion Two Year Old Filly. She has been training sharply and will have Mike Smith aboard from post six.
Second choice at morning line odds of 6-1 is Street Fancy for trainer Philip D’Amato. A bay daughter of Street Sense, she has won two of her three starts and is another filly in the race who will be making her first start of the year. She closed out her juvenile season with a win in the Starlet Stakes (G1) at Los Alamitos. Victor Espinoza will be aboard and they will break from post position three.
Also in the field at morning line odds of 8-1 is Land Over Sea for trainer Doug O’Neill. A chestnut daughter of Bellamy Road, she has been on the board in four of her five starts and is trying to earn her first black type victory. She will be trying to rebound after finishing seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) in her most recent start. Mario Gutierrez will be aboard and they will break from post two.
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...
Leave a comment