Vanderbilt runner-up Special Reserve faces 6 rivals in Phoenix
Paradise Farms Corp. and David Staudacher’s Special Reserve headlines a field of seven sprinters entered Tuesday for Friday’s 169th running of the $250,000 Phoenix Stakes (G2) going 6 furlongs on the main track. Friday is opening day of Keeneland’s Fall Meet, which marks the track’s 85th anniversary.
Scheduled as the eighth race on Friday’s 10-race program with a 5:10 p.m. EDT post time, the Phoenix is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race with the winner receiving a fees-paid berth into the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) to be run Nov. 6 at Del Mar.
Trained by Mike Maker, Special Reserve has compiled a 6: 4-2-0 record in 2021 and enters Friday’s race off a runner-up effort in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt (G1) at Saratoga on July 31. In his lone Keeneland start, Special Reserve was second in this spring’s Commonwealth (G3). Joel Rosario, who was aboard in the Vanderbilt, has the mount Friday out of post position six.
[Related: Just Might looks to continue hot streak in Phoenix]
Looming as the main threat to Special Reserve is Griffon Farms and trainer Michelle Lovell’s Just Might.
Winner of his past four starts, all coming in stakes, Just Might enters Friday’s race off dirt victories at Colonial Downs and most recently at Churchill Downs. Colby Hernandez has the mount from post four.