The Sunday afternoon card at the Red Mile wraps up the Bluegrass series with stakes for three-year-old trotting colts and fillies.
The fillies will kick off the card in the first half of the double with the first of three Bluegrass divisions, each of which will race for a purse of around $70,000. The daughters of a couple of great trotting mares will headline the opener, with Passionate Glide's first foal, On The Bright Side, perhaps the most accomplished of the sextet. She faces the rapidly improving Bluff (a daughter of Blur) who just lowered the half-mile-track world record to 1:54 in her last start at Delaware.
The fourth race is a rematch of the one-two finishers from this year's Hambletonian Oaks, Personal Style and Win Missy B. Personal Style is closing in on a half-million-dollar season for Brittany Farms and trainer Nifty Norman. Win Missy B has enjoyed stellar campaigns at both two and three with career earnings well in excess of $1 million. Charlie Norris has developed and managed her from the start for prolific owner, Bob Key.
Check Me Out offers a reason to stay for the entire card, as she is slated to compete in Race 11. In the midst of another sublime season for Charlie Iannazzo and trainer/co-owner Ray Schnittker, the multiple world champ is as sharp as ever and comes to Lexington after vanquishing a pretty solid field of older horses from the nine hole on a sloppy track at Tioga in her last start. Maven would likely be the star of any other season, but was just born in the wrong year. She'll give it another go on Sunday. Valdonna is in the best form of her career and poses an upset threat.
The colts will race for a total of $227,000 and populate Races 2, 5 and 12, with Guccio and Magic Tonight the logical choices in the first split.
Little Brown Fox was just this close to winning the Canadian Trotting Classic during his last start. He has earned over $700,000 in a solid campaign for owners Christine Takter, Brittany Farms and the Fieldings, John and Jim. He'll be the punter's choice in Race 5, facing a solid if unspectacular field.
The twelfth race features Kentucky Sires Stakes champion Fusion Man facing open stakes types again after a solid second in the Old Oaken Bucket over the Delaware half in his last start. Tyler Smith has an excellent chance to add a Grand Circuit victory to his rapidly broadening resume at age 19 with the colt owned by TD Trot and trained by his father, Jeff.
Perhaps the most intriguing race of the afternoon is Race 10, the only overnight on the card. That one is a $7,500 Open Handicap prep for next's week's Allerage Farms Open Trot. The race features two of the titans of the division with this year's sensation Chapter Seven and the venerable $3.5 million winning Arch Madness among the entrants.
Sunday's first-race post time is 1:00 p.m., as will be the case Thursday through Sunday next week.
(Red Mile)