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Although this year's official Breeders' Cup qualifiers are over, providing free, automatic entry in those races, at least a couple of potential Breeders' Cup starters are still racing this weekend at Keeneland.
Graded stakes winners Venetian Harbor and Four Graces lead a field of 10 sophomore fillies Oct. 17 in the $200,000 Lexus Raven Run Stakes at the Lexington track, where a good effort from one or both could propel them into the Nov. 7 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, also at Keeneland. Both races are at seven furlongs.
The Raven Run/Filly & Mare Sprint double has been pulled off before. Two years ago, Conrad Farms' Shamrock Rose won both for trainer Mark Casse and was voted champion female sprinter of 2018.
For now, the connections of Venetian Harbor and Four Graces can only dream of repeating the feat. First things first winning the Raven Run will be hard enough.
Nine of the 10 entrants are either graded-placed or stakes winners, and the one exception, Klaravich Stables' Secondary Market, ran fourth in the Prioress Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.
She's one of two exiting the Sept. 5 Prioress, the other being Lael Stables' Reagan's Edge, the runner-up who was beaten 2 1/2 lengths by next-out Gallant Bloom Handicap winner Frank's Rockette.
The likely favorite is Venetian Harbor, who recorded a blowout win in the Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita Park in February. She has since been second in three consecutive graded stakes, losing to divisional leaders Swiss Skydiver, Speech, and Gamine.