Lexington trainer boasts two stellar fillies. One will face the boys in the Blue Grass.
A filly will run in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland for only the second time ever on Saturday in an exceptional bit of news amid an already highly unusual meet at Lexington’s venerable racetrack.
Swiss Skydiver, trained by Lexington native Kenny McPeek, will take on a field of 12 other 3-year-olds, all of them male, in the $600,000, Grade 2 race that serves as a major prep for September’s Kentucky Derby. She was installed Wednesday as the 3-1 favorite on the morning line.
Keeneland is conducting a summer race meet Wednesday through Sunday this week to help make up for the loss of its annual Spring Meet, which was canceled in April because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Any other year, (the decision not to run a filly against males in the Blue Grass) would have been easy,” McPeek said after Wednesday’s draw. “I’ve got another filly (Envoutante) in the Ashland that we’re fond of, and I hate running against each other if I can help it. (Swiss Skydiver) gets a bit of a weight break in the Blue Grass, and we did Triple Crown nominate her. (The race) seems to be pretty wide open.”
The Blue Grass Stakes, to be run for the 96th time, will take place without spectators in attendance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner will receive 100 points in the Road to the Kentucky Derby scoring system, with the second-place finisher earning 40 and the third- and fourth-place finishers collecting 20 and 10, respectively.
Post time is 5:30 p.m., and the 1 1/8-mile race on the main dirt track will be televised live on TVG.
The Blue Grass is one of six graded stakes on Saturday’s 10-race card at Keeneland. Among those is the $400,000 Grade 1 Central Bank Ashland Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a major prep for the Kentucky Oaks. Entries were also drawn Wednesday for the 1 1/16-mile Ashland, in which six fillies will go to post.
Also featured Saturday are the $350,000, Grade 1 Coolmore Jenny Wiley, the $250,000, Grade 1 Madison, the $150,000 Grade 2 Shakertown and the $150,000, Grade 2 Appalachian.
Wednesday’s draw drama mostly surrounded Swiss Skydiver, who was nominated by McPeek for both the Blue Grass and the Ashland and could be headed to the Kentucky Derby with a successful trip in her first race against males.
“If she can jump through this hoop, maybe she’ll be a Kentucky Derby horse,” McPeek told the Daily Racing Form on Wednesday morning upon deciding on the Blue Grass over the Ashland.
Swiss Skydiver, the points leader in Kentucky Oaks scoring, will race from post position No. 7 with Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith — a two-time winner of the Blue Grass — aboard.
“(Swiss Skydiver is) doing super. She gets weight (a 5-pound allowance) from all these colts,” said McPeek, who has also won the Blue Grass twice. “I think she’s going to like the added distance. I like the mile and an eighth (of the Blue Grass) better than the mile and a sixteenth (of the Ashland). It’ll be exciting.”
Swiss Skydiver, who enters Saturday’s Derby prep having won three consecutive races, will become only the second filly ever to run in the Blue Grass Stakes. Harriet Sue won the Ashland Stakes in 1944 then finished fifth in that year’s Blue Grass Stakes, a year when Keeneland’s Spring Meet was held at Churchill Downs. In 1948, future Hall of Famer Bewitch was entered in the Blue Grass then scratched.
Swiss Skydiver, owned by Peter J. Callahan, has won four of her seven career starts, including three of five this year. Most recently, she won the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks on June 6. Prior to that, she swept to victory in the Gulfstream Park Oaks on March 28 and the Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn on May 1.
Most of the trainers expect the addition of the filly to increase the pace of the race as Swiss Skydiver has shown a propensity for running on the front.
“I think so, I think the more speed in there, the better it is for us and obviously she has been running up front,” said Bret Calhoun, trainer of 10-1 shot Mr. Big News who won the Oaklawn Stakes on April 11 in his most recent outing. “There are 2-3 other horses in there who have been running up on the pace so that’s all beneficial for us.”
Ryne Poncik of Jackpot Farm, which owns Basin (No. 8 post position, 8-1 odds), expects his horse to be near the front of the pack at the first turn. Basin ranks ninth on the Kentucky Derby leader board with 50 points.
“It sounds like to me that Shivaree might go and Swiss (Skydiver) will go and then we’ll go right with Swiss,” he said of his Steve Asmussen-trained colt. “Hopefully us and Swiss can get over before the turn and it looks like most everyone on the inside will be coming from far out. So it looks like we’ll maybe be three-wide if I had to guess but it looks like we’ll be in the clear. We’ll be forwardly placed for sure.”
Saturday at Keeneland
What: Six graded stakes races including the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes and the Central Bank Ashland Stakes, which are prep races for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, respectively
When: First post is 1:05 p.m. Post time for the Ashland is 4:24 p.m., for the Blue Grass, 5:30 p.m.
TV: TVG
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Blue Grass Stakes field
1. Shivaree (8-1)
2. Finnick the Fierce (12-1)
3. Art Collector (6-1)
4. Mr. Big News (10-1)
5. Man in the Can (12-1)
6. Hard Lighting (50-1)
7. Swiss Skydiver (3-1)
8. Basin (8-1)
9. Attachment Rate (20-1)
10. Rushie (5-1)
11. Hunt the Front (20-1)
12. Enforceable (8-1)
13. Tiesto (15-1)
Ashland Stakes field
1. Alta’s Award
2. Venetian Harbor
3. Bonny South
4. Envoutante
5. Tonalist’s Shape
6. Speech
This story was originally published July 8, 2020 at 3:29 PM.