Stakes winner Dazzling Blue and multiple Grade 1-placed Clearly Unhinged are among 11 fillies and mares entered for Monday’s $250,000 Winning Colors (G3) at Churchill Downs. The six-furlong event tops a nine-race card on Military Appreciation Day at the track.
A four-year-old daughter of Into Mischief, Dazzling Blue has never finished out of the money from seven career starts for Brad Cox. She placed in the Prioress (G2) and Victory Ride (G3) before concluding last year with a third to top female sprinters Vahva and Alva Starr in the Raven Run (G2) at Keeneland, and Dazzling Blue just missed when returning from a six-month layoff in the April 27 Roxelana S. at Churchill, recording a neck second from off the pace. Florent Geroux will guide the early/presser.
A head second in the Test (G1) and third in the La Brea (G1), Clearly Unhinged was transferred to Steve Asmussen over the winter and opened her four-year-old season with a sharp off-the-turf allowance win on Kentucky Derby week, scoring by nearly three lengths and registering a career-best 98 Brisnet Speed rating. Joel Rosario will be back up on the Into Mischief filly.
Spirit Wind will seek to rebound after a sixth versus better in the Derby City Distaff (G1). Winner of the Sugar Swirl (G3) at Gulfstream this winter, the Saffie Joseph-trained mare will keep Jose Ortiz in the saddle. Stakes winner Positano Sunset, fourth when returning from an eight-month hiatus in the Roxelana, is a candidate to move forward in her second start back for Ian Wilkes.
Other runners include three-time stakes winner B G Warrior, last-out Keeneland allowance romper Royal Spa, and Roxelana third-placer Happy Am I.
