Hofburg to face six older horses in Keeneland's Fayette Stakes

Juddmonte Farms’ Hofburg and West Coast invader Prime Attraction headline a field of seven entered Wednesday for Saturday’s 61st running of the Grade 2, $200,000 Fayette Stakes, the closing-day feature of Keeneland’s 17-day Fall Meet.

Run at 1 1/8 miles on the main track, the Hagyard Fayette for 3-year-olds and up will go as the ninth race on Saturday’s 10-race program with a 5:30 p.m. ET post time. First post time is 1:05 p.m.

Trained by Bill Mott, Hofburg finished third in the Belmont Stakes behind Triple Crown winner Justify in June and in his most recent start was fourth in the Pennsylvania Derby (G1). Hofburg tuned up for Saturday’s race with a five-furlong work in 1:00.60 Monday at Churchill Downs.

Jose Ortiz will have the mount on Hofburg, who breaks from post position six. Mott has won the Hagyard Fayette twice with Go Between (2007) and Newsdad (2012).

Hofburg is the lone 3-year-old in the race, won 10 times by a 3-year-old with the most recent being Blame in 2009.

DP Racing’s Prime Attraction, who arrived at Keeneland Tuesday from his Southern California base and galloped here Wednesday morning, chased likely Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite Accelerate in his past two starts in the Pacific Classic (G1) and Awesome Again (G1).

Trained by James Cassidy, Prime Attraction is graded stakes-placed on turf and dirt in 2018 with his most recent victory coming in last November’s Native Diver (G3) at Del Mar going 1 1/8 miles.

Kent Desormeaux has the mount on Prime Attraction and will break from post position one.

The field for the Hagyard Fayette, with riders and weights from the rail out, is: Prime Attraction (Desormeaux, 121 pounds), Nice Not Nice (Gabriel Saez, 121), Hence (Ricardo Santana Jr., 123), Scuba (Tyler Gaffalione, 121), Leofric (Florent Geroux, 121), Hofburg (Ortiz, 118) and Rated R Superstar (Brian Hernandez Jr., 121).