Two stakes races, two plays at Keeneland

Graded stakes racing at Keeneland’s five-day summer meet gets underway Friday, with the Beaumont (G3) for 3-year-old fillies and the Maker’s Mark Mile (G1) for older grass runners.

Let’s take a stand with one horse in each race, with win bets and a double on a $50 budget.

Race 7: Beaumont (G3, 4:24 p.m. ET)

#2 Speech (7-5) is the morning-line favorite in this 7-furlong Kentucky Oaks (G1) prep race, but she is expected to scratch in favor of a start in Saturday’s Ashland (G1) at Keeneland. In her absence, #3 Four Graces (3-1) and #4 Wicked Whisper (3-1) figure to vie for favoritism.

Wicked Whisper is the more accomplished of the duo. She used her frontrunning speed to dominate the 1-mile Frizette (G1) against a quality field at Belmont Park last year. But Wicked Whisper hasn’t run since she finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), and trainer Steve Asmussen wins at just a 14% rate with horses off long layoffs.

With this in mind, Four Graces figures to have an edge in fitness. The daughter of fast sprinter Majesticperfection is 3-for-3 in 7-furlong races and enters off a confident, frontrunning victory in the Dogwood (G3) at Churchill Downs.

Four Graces showed plenty of speed in the Dogwood and survived splits of :22.27, :44.84, and 1:09.44 to pull clear and score by 2 1/2 lengths. With a clean break she can post a gate-to-wire win in the Beaumont.

$20 to win on #3 Four Graces
$10 double: 3 with 8

Race 8: Maker’s Mark Mile (G1, 4:57 p.m. ET)

Many handicappers will be keen to back #4 Raging Bull (9-5), who rallied to win the May 25 Shoemaker Mile (G1) at Santa Anita.

But Raging Bull was the beneficiary of a pace meltdown. He swooped in from off the pace, after the leaders burned out through blazing fractions of :22.16, :44.75, and 1:08.56. There’s no guarantee he’ll receive the same setup at Keeneland.

I’m more intrigued by Raging Bull’s stablemate #8 Without Parole (5-2). A Group 1 winner in England who finished third in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1), Without Parole raced much closer to the Shoemaker Mile pace than Raging Bull, then ran into severe traffic down the homestretch and never got a chance to accelerate. Only in the final yards did Without Parole squeeze between runners to grab third place. With a clean trip, he might have finished much closer.

Without Parole broke from the rail in the Shoemaker Mile but will start from post 8 in the Maker’s Mark Mile, which sets up the potential for an unencumbered journey. We’ll bet Without Parole to win and use him in the second half of our double wager with Four Graces.

$20 to win on #8 Without Parole

Good luck!