Daisy Devine Easily Captures Blushing K.D.

James Miller’s odds-on choice Daisy Devine was no disappointment to her many backers in the $75,000 Blushing K.D. Handicap on Santa Super Saturday at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.

The Kentucky-bred daughter of Kafwain who won the Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks in 2011 on the main track turned her talents to the Stall-Wilson Turf Course for the weekend, breezing home to a six-length score in the grassy Blushing K.D. – a race named after the 1997 Fair Grounds Oaks and Kentucky Oaks winner.

Away alertly and quickly in command, Daisy Devine set early splits of 24 flat and 49.42 before accomplishing the final time in 1:44.12 over the about 1 1/16-mile distance on firm ground.

“A paid workout,” winning jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. called her race, while trainer Andy McKeever beamed in the winner’s circle that she “looked as good as ever” and that he would continue to take things one day at a time with his sometimes fragile filly.

Daisy Devine returned mutuels of $2.40, $2.10 and $2.10 and increased her career earnings to $946,281 with her fourth win in eight lifetime starts. Sam-Son Farms’ Forest Uproar finished second paying $3.80 and $2.20 while 10 3/4-lengths farther back in third was John Chandler’s Francisca, who returned $2.10 to show.