Beaumont Stakes Attracts Evenly Matched Field Of Fillies At Keeneland

An evenly matched field of seven 3-year-old fillies was entered for Sunday's 38th running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Beaumont Stakes Presented by Keeneland Select to be run over Keeneland's Beard Course of seven furlongs, 184 feet.

The Beaumont will go as the eighth race on Sunday's nine-race program in Lexington, Ky., with a 4:44 p.m. ET post time. First post Sunday is 1 p.m.

The Beaumont is the last qualifying points race for the Kentucky Oaks, offering 10-4-3-2-1 to the top five finishers. None of the starters has compiled enough points to be close to qualifying in the event of a full field for the Kentucky Oak

Five of the seven are stakes winners with three of them coming off wins.

Flurry Racing Stables and Hoffman Family Racing's Key of Life won the Purple Martin at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 25 going six furlongs. Her trainer, Brad Cox, won the Beaumont last year with Matareya.

Key of Life is undefeated in two Keeneland starts at six furlongs with the most recent victory coming in the Myrtlewood Stakes last fall. Flavien Prat has the mount and will break from post seven.

Barry Schwartz's Stonewall Star enters the Beaumont off an 11-length victory in the Wide Country Stakes at Laurel on Feb. 18 going seven furlongs. A two-time stakes winner against New York-breds, Stonewall Star is trained by Horacio De Paz and will be ridden by Luis Saez from post three.

Klaravich Stables' Interpolate comes into Sunday's race off a 2½-length victory in the Ruthless Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 5. Trained by Chad Brown, who won the 2014 Beaumont with Ready to Act, Interpolate will be ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr. from post four.

Other stakes winners in the field are Lucky Seven Stable's Fun and Feisty and Mark Grier's Opus Forty Two.

Fun and Feisty won the Pocahontas (G3) going 1 1/16 miles last fall at Churchill Downs for trainer Kenny McPeek, a two-time Beaumont winner. Brian Hernandez Jr. has the mount from post five.

Arnaud Delacour trains Opus Forty Two, who won the seven-furlong Gasparilla Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs before finishing fourth in the Suncoast. Tyler Gaffalione has the mount from post six.

The field for the Beaumont, with riders and weights from the rail out, is: Shoplifter (Corey Lanerie, 118 pounds), She's On the Rocks (John McKee, 118), Stonewall Star (Saez, 118), Interpolate (Ortiz Jr., 118), Fun and Feisty (Hernandez Jr., 118), Opus Forty Two (Gaffalione, 118), Key of Life (Prat, 118).

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