Nominations for the eight scheduled stakes on Highway to the Derby Kickoff Day at Honest Grounds Race Course & Slots have been launched. The headline races of the Dec. 21 program embrace the 4th working of the $100,000 Gun Runner and the $100,000 Untapable Stakes for fillies. Each stakes award 10-5-3-2-1 factors as the ultimate 2-year-old Kentucky Derby and Oaks (G1) prep races of the calendar 12 months.Â
Publish positions for the Dec. 21 card, which additionally consists of the Sugar Bowl, Letellier, Tenacious, Richard R. Scherer Memorial, Blushing KD, and Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes, might be drawn Dec. 14. First put up is scheduled for midday CT.
The Gun Runner obtained 21 nominations, led by Winchell Thoroughbreds’ Magnitude . The 2-time winner who broke his maiden at Ellis Park handed the two-turn check in his first strive, successful an allowance in mid-November at Churchill Downs. The Not This Time  colt is educated by Steve Asmussen, who has gained this occasion twice, together with the inaugural version with Winchell Thoroughbreds’ Epicenter. Kentucky Derby 148 winner Wealthy Strike  ran fifth behind Epicenter  within the 2021 version.Â
Coach Brad Cox nominated 4 to the Gun Runner, led by Albaugh Household Stables’ Admiral Dennis and Gary and Mary West’s Sizzling Property . Admiral Dennis broke his maiden at second asking, going one mile at Churchill Downs in mid-November. Sizzling Property debuted earlier within the meet, efficiently main at each name of the 1 1/16 miles dust route. Cox teamed up with Albaugh Household Stables, partial house owners of Jace’s Highway, to win the Gun Runner in 2022.
Run over 1 1/16 miles, the Gun Runner is known as for the native winner of the 2016 Risen Star (G2) and Louisiana Derby (G2). All three winners of the Derby prep have made it to the Kentucky Derby beginning gates.Â
Nominations for the 1-mile-70-yards Untapable amounted to 17, together with Inexperienced Lantern Stables’ Amarth and Gary and Mary West’s California Sundown . Educated by Eddie Kenneally, Amarth has gained her final two, starting with a dash at Keeneland in October adopted up by scoring in her 1 1/16 miles distance check at Churchill Downs. Brad Cox added blinkers for California Sundown’s second outing, a maiden breaking rating at Churchill Downs in her first strive at two turns. Cox saddled the 2023 Untapable winner, Alpine Princess .
Each Amarth and California Sundown breezed domestically final weekend.
Fairly Mischievous gained the Untapable for Godolphin and Brendan Walsh in 2022 forward of successful Kentucky Oaks 149.
Brad Cox leads all trainers with three nominations to the sixtieth working of the $100,000 Tenacious Stakes, written for older horses going 1 1/16 miles. FMQ Stables Louisiana Stakes (G3) winner Saudi Crown , Godolphin’s Kinetic , a progressive winner of three in a row, and Evan Ferraro and Stephen Ferraro’s 2023 Road Sense (G3) champion Liberal Arts every put in drills final weekend at Honest Grounds.Â
L and N Racing, Clark Brewster, Jerry Caroom, and Breeze Straightforward’s Monitor Phantom, was nominated to the Tenacious by Steve Asmussen. The reigning Gun Runner title holder ran second on Nov. 17, going 7 furlongs at Churchill Downs in his first begin since Kentucky Derby 150.Â
Exiting the Breeders’ Cup Turf Dash (G1), Sonata Secure’s Arzak is one in every of 26 older horses nominated to the $100,000 Richard R. Scherer Memorial, a 5 1/2 furlongs turf dash. The three-time graded stakes winner is educated by Mike Trombetta.Â
The nineteenth working of the $100,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes noticed 22 older males nominated for the 1 1/16 miles turf route. Group Block’s graded stakes winner One other Thriller was put ahead by coach Chris Block. In 2024, the 8-year-old has racked up three extra added cash titles to his resume, for a complete of seven stakes wins, together with the native Bob Wright Memorial in 2021.
The $100,000 Blushing KD Stakes, the feminine counterpart to the Diliberto, attracted 17 nominees, led by final 12 months’s winner Gentry Farms’ Beautiful Princess, who boasts $417,045 in lifetime earnings for coach Ken McPeek.
The seventy fifth working of the $100,000 Sugar Bowl, a 6-furlong dash for juveniles, noticed 14 nominated, together with two owned by Valene Farms and educated by Dallas Stewart: Smoken Depraved and Dapper Moon.Â
13 have been nominated to the $100,000 Letellier Memorial Stakes, the feminine counterpart to the Sugar Bowl, together with two owned by Grantley Acres for coach Whit Beckman: Her Giggle and Merely Joking.
The checklist of nominees and the previous performances for all eight stakes to be run at Honest Grounds on Saturday, Dec. 21 could be discovered right here: https://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbHorsemenAreaSNHW.cfm?trk=FG
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This press launch has been edited for content material and elegance by BloodHorse Workers.
