Keeneland: In-foal Forever After All wins closing-day Bewitch
Post-time favorite Forever After All, who is in foal to Flightline, swept to the front rounding the final turn Friday and coasted to a nine-length victory in the Grade 3, $350,000 Bewitch Stakes on closing day of Keeneland’s 15-day spring meet.
The margin of victory equaled the record for the race set by Shore in the first division in 1966.
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Ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr. for trainer Brendan Walsh, Forever After All (9-5) covered 1 1/2 miles on a turf course rated as yielding in 2:35.56.
“The turns (at Keeneland) are much better for her,” Ortiz said. “She’s a big filly. She has a huge stride on her. I think these turns helped her a lot. She’s been running at Gulfstream, and the firm turf and tight turns (there) don’t help her too much, but I think today she was very impressive.”
A Dixiana Farms homebred, Forever After All paid $5.62, $3.34 and $2.32. Youknownothing (15-1) finished second under Florent Géroux and returned $10.92 and $5.12. Immensitude (9-5), ridden by Flavien Prat, was 6 1/4 more lengths behind in third and paid $2.58 to show. Dazzlin’ Dictator (20-1) was another 3 3/4 lengths back in fourth and was followed by Eternal Silence (3-1), Sabalenka (14-1) and Sand and Sea (9-1).
A graduate of Keeneland’s September 2020 yearling sale, Forever After All is a 6-year-old mare by Connect out of Giant’s Causeway broodmare Julia Tuttle. She is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner and sire Tom’s d’Etat.
“She was bred about three or four weeks ago to Flightline, so we’re going to have a limited rest of our time with her,” Walsh said of Forever After All. “One, maybe two more runs. We might try to pick out a race or two and maybe try to give her a shot at a Grade 1 if one fits somewhere along the line.”
The Bewitch victory was worth $211,575 to Forever After All, who recorded her fourth win in 24 starts and increased her earnings to $782,454.
Walsh finished the meet tied with Brad Cox for the spring training title.
“You never (expect to have this kind of success) because it’s a super tough meet, but it’s been great,” Walsh said. “It’s thanks to the owners who supplied us with some great horses, but really it’s a tribute to my staff. They put in great work every day, so it’s a tribute to them. It’s all them.”