Keen Pauline wires Black-Eyed Susan in upset

Keen Pauline pulled off an upset when wiring the Black-Eyed Susan (Cecilia Gustavsson/Horsephotos.com)

Stonestreet Stables LLC’s homebred Keen Pauline (Pulpit) entered Friday’s
$250,000

Black-Eyed Susan S. (G2) owning just a maiden win, but exited the 1 1/8-mile
contest over Pimlico’s fast main track a Grade 2 victress after putting her
rivals to sleep on the front end.

Jockey Javier Castellano allowed the normally stalking filly to take command from her far outside post 9 when the gates opened, and Keen Pauline
proceeded to set pedestrian fractions of :24 1/5, :49 and 1:13. Gypsy Judy (Kitalpha)
was keeping in close attendance to her outside but didn’t press the leader,
while 6-5 favorite Luminance (Tale of the Cat) and Devine Aida (Unbridled’s
Song) stalked in third and fourth.

Gypsy Judy briefly moved up to run in tandem with Keen Pauline rounding the
turn as the rest of the field began closing in, but Keen Pauline merely kicked
into another gear and pulled off for a 2 3/4-length score. The Kentucky-bred
lass opened up on her rivals to finish nine furlongs in 1:50 2/5 as the 15-1
sixth shot and return $32.80.

“You have to take advantage when anything
happens in a race,” Castellano explained. “I didn’t expect to be on the lead. I
saw a lot of speed in the race. I thought that Martin Garcia on (Luminance) had
the speed and was going to dictate the pace. He broke OK and didn’t send his
horse to the lead. My horse broke so well out of the gate I dictated the pace
and I enjoyed the ride.”

Keen Pauline sported a Black-Eyed Susan blanket after winning her stakes debut in that namesake race (Cecilia Gustavsson/Horsephotos.com)

Trained by Dale Romans, Keen Pauline improved her career record to 6-2-1-1,
$180,932. The chestnut filly was a well-beaten 10th while making her career
debut on turf last August at Saratoga, then produced a dead-heat win a month
later at Churchill Downs. She closed out her juvenile campaign with a runner-up
effort under the Twin Spires on November 9 and made her 2015 debut a third-place
effort against similar allowance/optional claiming rivals at Gulfstream Park on
January 16.

Keen Pauline wouldn’t be seen in competition again until showing up at
Keeneland on April 16 to rally for fourth in a six-furlong allowance and was
making her stakes bow in the Black-Eyed Susan.

“Dale took his time with her in Florida,” assistant trainer Tammy Fox said.
“She had a couple of months off. She came back for the Keeneland race and it set
her up perfect for this race here. Yesterday, when I galloped her over this
surface, she loved it. She loved everything about it.

“What more can you say? You have the best of the best on the horse,” Fox
added about Castellano’s ride. “He knew how fast he was going. That helped a
lot. When you can see a horse’s ears just pricked like that and he’s sitting. He
did a great job on her.”

The sophomore filly, who RNAed for $475,000 as a Keeneland September
yearling, is the first registered stakes winner out of the unraced Grand Pauline
(Two Punch). That mare is a half-sister to a number of black-type runners,
including stakes scorer Grand Appointment (Unbridled) and the Grade 3-placed dam
of Grade 3 runner-up and stakes hero Mordi’s Miracle (Lawyer Ron).