Trainer Chad Brown took three shots at last week’s Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) and won with the favorite Cambier Parc. The multiple Eclipse Award-winning trainer will have another trio of three-year-old fillies aimed at Friday’s $150,000 Valley View (G3), including likely favorite Blowout, in the 1 1/16-mile grass test at Keeneland.
Only a half-length behind eventual division leader Concrete Rose in her stakes debut in the March 9 Florida Oaks (G3), Blowout has been admirably consistent all season. Her two stakes wins, in the $100,000 Wild Applause and $200,000 Pebbles, were both achieved over a mile on the Widener turf at Belmont Park. She’s also missed narrowly in three other stakes, including both graded events at Saratoga which she unsuccessfully attempted to steal on the front end.
Also going for Brown are the lightly-raced Catch a Bid, a photo-finish winner of the restricted $100,000 Riskaverse at Saratoga last time, and Turf War, heroine of the $100,000 Christiecat at Belmont over six furlongs in her third U.S. appearance.
The regally-bred Winter Sunset, who finished behind Concrete Rose and Blowout in the Florida Oaks, has not yet lived up to her lofty pedigree. However, the daughter of Tapit and Winter Memories earned her second stakes win of the season taking the $200,000 Indiana Grand by more than two lengths last month.
Hard Legacy, who sports the colors of the late Marylou Whitney, landed the Regret (G3) at Churchill Downs in June and then was three lengths fifth to Cambier Parc in the Del Mar Oaks (G1) after being near the rear of the field most of the way. Maxim Rate wasn’t far behind Hard Legacy at Del Mar, but has gone unplaced three times since taking the Senorita (G3) in May.
The Mackem Bullet was last seen taking the Appalachian (G2) during the Keeneland spring meet over Regal Glory, who went on to win both graded stakes for her division at Saratoga, and Princesa Carolina, who took the $350,000 Dueling Grounds Oaks and was third in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup. Wildlife, a daughter of Animal Kingdom, shortens up off a second in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs going 1 5/16 miles.
Others of note are Honeymoon (G3) winner Lady Prancealot, who scratched from the Queen Elizabeth II to run here, and recent Virginia Oaks winner Carnival Colors.
