Keeneland: Candied captures Alcibiades, earns BC berth

Lexington, Ky.

So what if Candied still does not know when to change leads? She has an excuse. Her entire racing career has lasted less than three minutes. If it had lasted a fifth of a second longer, she would not be undefeated.

Even without racking up a lot of style points, she nevertheless is 2-for-2.

“It’s not slowing her down any,” her trainer Todd Pletcher said Friday after Candied (5-1) closed from mid-pack, swept wide out of the second turn and raced to a one-length win in the Grade 1, $600,000 Alcibiades Stakes on a sunny, 76-degree opening day at the Keeneland fall meet.

The victory in the 1 1/16-mile race on the fast, main track clinched the 2-year-old Candy Ride filly a berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 3 at Santa Anita.

“She was a little difficult,” said jockey Luis Sáez, who also rode Candied’s six-furlong, debut win Aug. 20 at Saratoga. “She is a runner, really. She came through the stretch, and she had a big turn of foot.”

Sáez said it took him two tries to get Candied off her left lead in the short stretch to the early finish line that is used for certain dirt races at Keeneland. By then it did not really matter, because it was full speed ahead. Post-time favorite V V’s Dream (7-5) had her own head of steam, but Candied passed her with about a sixteenth of a mile to go.

“Coming off the turn I was like, ‘We’re going to win,’ ” jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. said about V V’s Dream, who had won by 8 3/4 lengths in last month’s Pocahontas (G3) at Churchill Downs. “My filly took off, and (Candied) just ran her down.”

V V’s Dream settled for a best-of-the-rest second, 5 3/4 lengths better than third-place Alys Beach (16-1). Shimmering Allure (25-1) was another head back in fourth.

Spinaway winner (G1) Brightwork (9-5), who had been 4-for-4, was a stalking second early, but she faded to finish fifth in her first assignment longer than seven furlongs. Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. was not ready to blame the added distance.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “She just didn’t fire. She broke sharp, and I bided my time. Let’s regroup and see how she comes back. First time going two turns. ... She was galloping on the backside but just didn’t fire.”

Crazy Cami (79-1), Alpine Princess (10-1) and Wine On Tap (24-1) finished sixth through eighth in that order.

The winning time was 1:44.17. The only other race at that distance Friday was the opener for maidens, and it was run in 1:44.77. In the Alcibiades, Alys Beach set pedestrian fractions of 23.84, 48.25 and 1:12.67 before Candied finished the first mile at 1:37.67.

Candied paid $10.16, $4.58 and $3.38; V V’s Dream $2.86 and $2.60; and Alys Beach $5.70.

Pletcher was not sure whether he would ship Candied back to New York, keep her in Kentucky or send her directly to California to prepare for the Breeders’ Cup. It is a pleasant detail for him to work out only 47 days after the $165,000 filly owned by Aron Wellman’s Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners made her racing debut.

“My biggest concern was not her talent level but her lack of seasoning, especially running against some top-class fillies that have had a steady campaign,” said Pletcher, a first-time winner of this race that was run Friday for the 72nd time. “I thought first time going two turns, first time in a Grade 1, first time in a stake, it was quite an effort.”

The class improvement seemed logarithmic enough since that maiden win at Saratoga. The J curve may get even steeper next month when Candied faces the likes of the highly regarded and heavily hyped Del Mar Debutante (G1) winner Tamara as well as some of the fillies she vanquished Friday.

“She’s just improved pretty much every day throughout the course of the summer and early fall,” Pletcher said. “Big improvement from her debut. She’s still learning. You can see she’s still a little green and still late switching leads, but it takes a pretty special filly to go from a maiden race into a Grade 1 like this and be successful.”

The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies also is 1 1/16 miles around two turns, conditions that Sáez said were made for Candied.

“We know she’s better long,” Sáez said. “We were pretty prepared for this race today, and I have a good confidence in her, because she has a lot of talent.”