Love Reigns targets Royal Ascot Group 1 race off Keeneland win
Trainer Wesley Ward indicated Saturday morning that his one-two finishers in Friday’s Limestone Stakes at Keeneland might be headed in different directions.
The winner, Stonestreet Stables’s Love Reigns, could have a return trip to Royal Ascot in England, where she ran fourth in last year’s Group 2 Queen Mary. The target this year would be the King’s Stand (G1) on June 20.
The runner-up, AMO Racing’s Lady Hollywood, will target the $225,000 Mamzelle to be run May 3 over 5 1/2 furlongs at Churchill Downs.
Ward said both fillies were doing well Saturday morning after making their 2023 debuts in the Limestone. They had not run since finishing off the board against males in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint over the same course in November.
Another runner from that Breeders’ Cup race who made her 2023 debut in the Limestone was KatieRich Stables’s American Apple, who finished fourth.
“She got caught a little wide yesterday, but I thought it was a good race off the layoff,” trainer Daniel Leitch said. “She will probably go to the Mamzelle. I’m going to nominate her today.”
The feature on Friday’s Keeneland card was the Maker’s Mark Mile Stakes (G1). In what was expected to be a showcase for Godolphin’s champion Modern Games, the scene stealer turned out to be Lael Stables’s Chez Pierre.
When Chez Pierre left his seven rivals in his wake in the upper stretch en route to a 3 1/2-length score, the performance was something trainer Arnaud Delacour had seen before.
“He’s got a great turn of foot, and he did the same thing last year in the Henry Clark at Laurel,” Delacour said of Chez Pierre’s 5 1/2-length victory in that race. “Those were legitimate Grade 2 and Grade 3 horses, and he put them away in the blink of an eye. That was a wow moment.”
Ridden by Flavien Prat, Chez Pierre won the Maker’s Mark Mile in a stakes-record 1:33.46.
Chez Pierre is ticketed to return to Delacour’s base at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. A return to Kentucky in a few weeks for Churchill Downs’ $1 million Turf Classic (G1) to be run at 1 1/8 miles on May 6 is unlikely.
“Probably not. I wouldn’t want to stretch him out and come back that quick,” Delacour said.
The victory by Chez Pierre was the sixth stakes win at Keeneland for Delacour and his first Grade 1. On Sunday, he will attempt to double up when he sends out Mark Grier’s Opus Forty Two in the 38th running of the $400,000 Beaumont Stakes (G2).
“It is an ambitious spot,” Delacour said. “If we get a piece of it, we’d be delighted. She is adding blinkers because she has seemed to be losing focus at the end of her races.”
Modern Games is scheduled to return to England on Tuesday.
“He cooled out well and is a happy horse this morning,” assistant Chris Connett said of the Charlie Appleby trainee. “He didn’t disgrace himself. The winner ran a huge race. Modern Games ran hard, and it is a good starting point for the rest of his 4-year-old campaign.”
Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable’s third-place finisher Up to the Mark, who was a neck behind Modern Games in his graded stakes debut, will head to Churchill on Sunday. Trainer Todd Pletcher said the Turf Classic is “under consideration” for Up to the Mark.
Kretz Racing’s Cabo Spirit, who finished fourth as the longest price in the field at 52-1, will head back to Santa Anita today and target the $500,000 Shoemaker Mile (G1) on May 29, according to trainer George Papaprodromou.