Evvie Jets will run her final race in Keeneland's First Lady

Saturday’s 27th running of the Grade 1, $750,000 First Lady at Keeneland will mark the final race for Evvie Jets.

“We were going to retire her last year, but we wanted to go one more year,” trainer Mertkan Kantarmaci said Wednesday morning. “It has been a good year.”

Evvie Jets, now 6, closed her 2023 campaign with a third-place finish in the First Lady. That performance helped prompt the decision to make her farewell bow at Keeneland.

“She ran good here last year at a mile and she is proven at the distance, so we thought we’d try again,” said Kantarmaci, who trains the mare for the estate of Robert Amendola.

Gina Romantica won last year’s First Lady, and Evvie Jets will face that rival again Saturday.

This is the third trip to Kentucky in 2024 for Evvie Jets, who arrived at Keeneland Sunday from New York. She began the year with an eighth-place finish to Saturday rival Chili Flag in the Churchill Distaff Turf Mile (G2), and in her most recent start was third to another Saturday rival, Walkathon, in the Ladies Turf (G3) at Kentucky Downs on Aug. 31.

Saturday also will bring to a close the training career for the 33-year-old Kantarmaci, who has 20 horses in his New York-based stable.

“I am going to take a break and step back,” he said. “My older brother Ilkay will be taking over.