It’s Saturday and though the field for the Kentucky Derby is pretty much set for this year, we still have one final race from Keeneland as we complete the road to the Kentucky Derby with the Lexington Stales which will go a mile and a sixteenth on the main track.
We stay at soggy Keeneland for their featured race which is the ninth of ten on their Friday card. We will look at the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile, which will be a mile race that is scheduled for the turf. Post time is for approximately 5:16 pm Eastern time.
Welcome back to another edition of Quills Picks Winners, and we are headed today to rainy Lexington, Kentucky where we will look at an interesting race that I hope does not get decimated by scratches. Expect a sloppy track for this group of maidens aged three years old and up going six and a half furlongs on the main track. Post time is tentatively set for 2:36 pm Eastern time.
There’s about three weeks left in the Tampa Bay Downs season, so we will head there for our usual Wednesday stop as we will look at the seventh race today which is a race for three-year-old claimers going one mile on the turf course. Post time for these $20,000 claimers is for approximately 3:22 pm Eastern time.
After the celestial event of yesterday’s solar eclipse, we had home to Parx for today’s sixth race. We have Pennsylvania-bred three-year-old maidens going six furlongs here. The field of seven will head to the post at approximately 2:59 pm Eastern time.
Horseshoe Indy is not the only track that will experience a total solar eclipse. Mahoning Valley is on the edge of the total solar eclipse. Parx will be in the 80 to 90% range, where they have a mandatory pick-5 payout today which I am passing for some fun handicapping. Will Rogers is in the 95% range of totality. Even harness tracks running today will be affected.
We finish up with the Keeneland hat trick with today’s eighth race which is the Beaumont Stakes, which is a Grade 2 race on the main track going about 7 furlongs. Post time for these six three-year-olds is set for approximately 4:44 pm Eastern.
Resilience, Sierra Leone and Stronghold posted impressive victories on Saturday in New York, Kentucky and California, respectively, in win-and-you’re-in prep races on the road to the 150th Kentucky Derby, the preeminent competition for three-year-old thoroughbred racehorses in the United States.
After another 90-minute wait, we will close the day with the Santa Anita Derby, which is the tenth race of a 12-race card at the Great Race Pace. Post time for this race is for approximately 7:45 pm, and you can watch this race live on FanDuel TV and on CNBC.