The $350,000, Grade 2 VisitLEX Elkhorn Stakes Saturday at Keeneland drew a strong field, with five of the entrants boasting stakes wins in similar races. The Elkhorn is run at the marathon distance of 1 ½ miles on Keeneland’s turf course.
Saturday’s field is led by Bold Act, who won the Grade 3 Sycamore Stakes at a mile and a half on the Keeneland turf six months ago, as well as the Group 2 Dubai City of Gold Stakes last month. Highland Chief, who returns after more than a year away from the races, won the 2022 Sycamore before posting a 12th-place finish in the Grade 1 Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf the following month. Dynadrive won the Grade 3 John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes in late January and is another proven contender, as is Missed the Cut, winner of the similar Grade 3 San Luis Rey Stakes in California four weeks ago. Wentru was victorious in the Grade 3 Valedictory Stakes at the Elkhorn’s distance in the fall of 2022 but is winless in three races since. The Grey Wizard finished second in the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup Stakes last June at the distance of two miles and is another who may have a say in the outcome. Winning Spirit makes his U.S. debut off a layoff since last summer but was second in the Group 2 Italian Derby and may fit with these as well. Silver Knott returns to competition off of a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby in December, and he ran the best race of his career at Keeneland when defeated by a nose in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in the fall of 2022. King Curlin is running in a stakes race for the first time and returns off a layoff since January when he earned a win at 1 ½ miles in an allowance race. Lucky Curlin rounds out the field, having finished fifth in the Grade 2 Pan American Stakes at this distance in his most recent start. Foreign Relations is also entered in the Elkhorn, but the Grade 3 winner ran this past Sunday at Keeneland and is likely to be withdrawn.
Top Contenders:
As probable as Bold Act appears to be in this year’s Elkhorn, Highland Chief is just as talented and as classy. Highland Chief imported to the U.S. in the winter of 2021 and made his stateside debut in April of 2022. It was an inauspicious debut as he finished ninth of 12, but that was in a mile and one-sixteenth race, a distance he had not run in nearly three years, and it was obvious the race was designed as nothing more than a prep for longer races. Entered back one month later, Highland Chief won the Man O’ War Stakes at Belmont Park, which was held at the distance of 1 3/8 miles. After two fourth-place efforts, he took a couple of months off during late summer 2022. Returning in October at Keeneland in the 1 ½-mile Sycamore Stakes, Highland Chief ran back to his Man O’ War effort under a brilliant ride by John Velazquez, who was aboard for the first time that day and who also is scheduled to ride in Saturday’s Elkhorn. Highland Chief earned a 113 Equibase Speed Figure in the 2022 Sycamore Stakes, as good as the 113 figure Bold Act earned in his most recent race. He closed out 2022 by finishing 12th of 13 in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland, but since then he’s been given all the time needed to get back into form under the care of trainer Graham Motion. He’s been in consistent training since the beginning of March and posted a strong workout on turf before coming up to Kentucky from his home base in Florida. As such, Highland Chief appears capable of approaching his graded stakes-winning form in the Elkhorn.
Bold Act has the same probability to win the Elkhorn as Highland Chief does, in my opinion, but he will be the prohibitive post-time betting favorite considering the only time he ran in the U.S. previously, he won. That win was in the Sycamore Stakes last year, where the 117 Equibase Speed Figure he earned was better than the 113 figure Highland Chief earned winning the same race 12 months earlier. Since then, Bold Act returned off a 4 ½-month layoff to win the Dubai City of Gold Stakes on March 2 at Meydan Racecourse, winning easily in a field of nine and earning a 113 figure. He is likely to run even better in his second start of the year, so it certainly would be no surprise if he emerges victorious for the eighth time in his 14th career race.
Honorable mention goes to Missed the Cut, Dynadrive, and The Grey Wizard, because all three have won at this mile and one-half trip on turf. Missed the Cut did that in his first try at the distance last month in California, earning a 107 figure in the San Luis Rey Stakes. Dynadrive won the similar John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes in Texas with a 106 figure at the end of January, while The Grey Wizard won an allowance race at Keeneland at the distance last April, one start before earning a 112 figure when second in the two-mile Belmont Gold Cup Stakes.
The rest of the field, with their best representative Equibase Speed Figures, is King Curlin (100), Lucky Curlin (101), Silver Knott (110), Wentru (103) and Winning Spirit (106).
Win Contenders:
Highland Chief
Bold Act
Daily Double
8-11
8-11
$39
Superfecta
11-10-4-2
11-10-4-2
$53
Trifecta
11-10-4
11-10-4
$26
Daily Double
8-11
8-11
$39
Superfecta
11-10-4-2
11-10-4-2
$53
Trifecta
11-10-4
11-10-4
$26
