Rivals Blue Prize, Elate pointing to Delaware Handicap rematch

Four weeks after Elate ran down Blue Prize in the stretch at Churchill Downs, the two mares are scheduled for a rematch.

Trainer Ignacio Correas said Tuesday that Blue Prize, second last out to Elate in Churchill Downs' Fleur de Lis (G2), is pointing toward the Delaware Handicap on July 13.

That Grade 2, $750,000 feature for 3-and-up fillies and mares goes 1 ¼ miles on the Delaware Park dirt.

Elate is also bound for the Delaware Handicap, Claiborne Farm president Walker Hancock tweeted Friday. Claiborne bred and campaigns the Bill Mott-trained 5-year-old along with Adele Dilschneider.

“That is a great mare,” Correas said of Elate. “If she goes (to the Delaware Handicap), we’re going to try to beat her, or she’ll beat us.”

The 6-year-old Blue Prize entered June 15’s Fleur de Lis as the defending stakes champion. She went off the 7-2 third betting choice behind Elate and She’s a Julie.

Blue Prize sat in fourth place, just behind and to the outside of Elate, heading into the far turn. The Argentinian-bred Blue Prize then took off behind second-place She’s a Julie, as those two rolled by pace-setter Skeptic and into a stretch duel.

While Blue Prize and She’s a Julie duked it out over the final furlong, Elate revved up in the center of the track. She thundered by the top two with the finish line in sight and scored by 1 ½ lengths over Blue Prize, who held off She’s a Julie by a head for second.

Correas said Blue Prize “tried hard” but that he “wasn’t particularly happy with the trip.”

“When you come up to the last sixteenth, she needs to have a target,” Correas said. “She can’t be first on the last sixteenth because then she doesn’t have the reaction. She’s more of a grinder. She doesn’t react that quick.”

The Merriebelle Stables LLC mare Blue Prize is now 19: 7-8-2 for her career with $1,162,253 in earnings. Since coming to the U.S. from Argentina as a 3-year-old, she’s scored a Grade 1 win in the 2018 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland and three other graded triumphs, all at Churchill Downs.

The Delaware Handicap will mark Blue Prize’s first start outside Kentucky since a runner-up performance last May in Pimlico’s Allaire DuPont Distaff Stakes (G3).

“I think that she will like the mile and a quarter,” Correas said. “We didn’t do it last year because she’d already run four times (from March 17-June 16) and we wanted to give her a little bit of a break. We’d already qualified for the Breeders’ Cup.

“Now she’s only run twice this year. So she needs another race and I think that’s the right spot.”

Should things go well in Delaware, Correas said Saratoga’s $700,000 Personal Ensign (G1), a Breeders’ Cup Distaff “Win and You’re In” qualifier Aug. 24, is an option for her following start. That race is expect to attract, among others, division leader Midnight Bisou.