How to bet the Ellis Park Turf Stakes

A deep field of 11 fillies and mares will run 1 1/16 miles on the Ellis Park lawn in Sunday’s $125,000 Ellis Park Turf S. The grassy feature is a tough one to decipher, but if Juddmonte homebred #11 Juncture (7-2) runs her best, then I believe that she will be difficult to fend off in the late stages of the affair.

Trained by Brad Cox, the three-time stakes heroine was an excellent winner of the Ouija Board S. at Lone Star two back, prior to failing to fire her best shot against stakes foes at Horseshoe Indianapolis in her most recent performance. The daughter of Dark Angel comes in fresh for this assignment and possesses the turn of foot that will be required after drawing widest of all in the cast. Gerardo Corrales will be in the silks and has been red-hot when riding for this outfit as of late.
 
#4 Wave of Goodness (20-1) might be a bit of a reach due to her inconsistency, but the five-year-old has the right running style for the event, and the top-three contender also proved that she had some class to her in defeating stakes foes at Fair Grounds earlier this season. The Armando Hernandez pupil made a fine late rally after a poor break at Hawthorne when a stakes second last time out, and she will be competitive with this cast with a forward move in her third start off the short absence. The Cairo Prince mare will have Mitchell Murrill in the silks and figures to be forwardly placed in the second or third flight early on.

Kenny McPeek’s #5 Lovely Princess (3-1) has gone close in a pair of black-type tilts in succession and is the logical morning-line choice in the field. The Twirling Candy four-year-old has never been worse than fourth from eight career runs on the green, which includes a 2-1-1-0 mark at Ellis. The Gentry Farms homebred drilled a bullet half-mile at Churchill Downs in advance of Sunday and will be running from off of the pace with Brian Hernandez, Jr. in the irons.
 
Multiple stakes winner #2 Bipartisanship (5-2) and Grade 3 heroine #9 Kate’s Kingdom (6-1) also have appeal for the verticals.

Ellis Park Turf Wagers

$1 superfecta: key 11 with 2,4,5,9 ($24)
$.50-cent superfecta: 11 with 4,5 with 2,4,5,9 with all ($24)