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Nine Races Carded For April 13 Opening Day At Indiana Grand

Nine races will kick off the 19th season of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing Tuesday, April 13. The program features eight Thoroughbred and one Quarter Horse race with a first post time of 2:25 p.m.

Featured on the card is a $37,000 Indiana sired allowance in the sixth race. The eight-horse field brings the return of several Indiana winners from last season, including Sudden Shift from the Bob Gorham Stable. The three-year-old Unbridled Express gelding finished second in his final start of 2020 in the $75,000 Indiana Futurity. DeShawn Parker, 2020 leading rider at Indiana Grand, will guide Sudden Shift from post seven.

Parker earned his first leading jockey title at Indiana Grand in 2020 with 106 trips to the winner's circle. The jockey with more than 5,800 career wins adds the title from Indiana Grand to his impressive resume with numerous leading jockey titles from Mountaineer Park. Joining Parker in the race for leading jockey in 2021 is Marcelino Pedroza, Jr., who won his second leading jockey title at Indiana Grand in 2019. Pedroza was sidelined for most of the 2020 season due to injury.

In the trainer category, Genaro Garcia returns seeking his fifth straight title. He topped the standings last year with 43 wins over the shortened 96-day racing season. His stable, Southwest Racing, teamed up with Steve Lewis last year to also win leading owner honors.

The 120-day racing season extends through Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. The stakes schedule has been expanded to include several new stakes, bringing the total count to 40 with purses exceeding $3.6 million. Highlighting the stakes season is the Grade 3 $300,000 Indiana Derby and the Grade 3 $200,000 Indiana Oaks set for Wednesday, July 7. Also featured is the state's richest turf race, the $150,000 Caesars Stakes (Listed) set for Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Live racing is conducted Monday through Wednesday at 2:25 p.m. with first post on Thursday set at 3:25 p.m. Six all-Quarter Horse days have been set beginning with the first one Saturday, June 5 at 10 a.m. More information about the 2021 racing season is available at www.indianagrand.com.

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2021 Derby Trail: Three Heating Up, Three Cooling Down for April 7

This feature provides a capsule look at three horses who are heating up on the Triple Crown trail and three horses whose chances for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve are not quite as strong as they were a week or two ago. In this edition, the focus is the previous week of prep races. With the action on the Derby trail heating up, this column will now appear regularly to analyze to biggest movers approaching the first leg of the Triple Crown.

Micheline Faces Brown-Trained Duo In Saturday’s Jenny Wiley

Godolphin's homebred Micheline, winner of the Hillsborough (G2) at Tampa Bay Downs in her 2021 debut, and the graded stakes-winning duo of Etoile and Tamahere trained by Chad Brown headline a small but select field of six fillies and mares entered Wednesday for Saturday's 33rd running of the $300,000 Coolmore Jenny Wiley (G1) at Keeneland.

The Coolmore Jenny Wiley, run at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, will go as the 10th race on Saturday afternoon's 11-race program with a 6:03 p.m. post time. First post time is 1:05 p.m.

Trained by Mike Stidham, Micheline closed 2020 with a victory in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs and then was runner-up in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) Presented by Dixiana here last fall. Her victory in the Hillsborough represented her first graded stakes victory.

Luis Saez will have the mount and break from post one.

A racing rarity will occur Saturday when half-siblings Micheline and Proxy – whose dam is millionaire Panty Raid, winner of the 2007 Juddmonte Spinster (G1) at Keeneland – start in consecutive graded stakes for owner-breeder Godolphin.

Micheline, a 4-year-old daughter of Bernardini, will be looking for her first Grade 1 victory in the $300,000 Coolmore Jenny Wiley (G1) at 1 1/16 miles on turf. In the day's previous race, the 3-year-old Tapit colt Proxy will bid for his first stakes win in the $200,000 Stonestreet Lexington (G3) at 1 1/16 miles on dirt.

Both are trained by Mike Stidham.

While they share immense talent, Stidham said the sister and brother have distinctive traits. Most notably, Micheline is claustrophobic in traditional housing, so she resides in a portable stall near Stidham's barn. At Keeneland, the special setup awaits her Thursday arrival from Florida.

Micheline also showed her talent sooner than Proxy did.

Micheline, who has earned $665,978 with five wins in 13 starts, flashed her brilliance before finishing third in her career debut in August 2019 at Saratoga.

“We took her to Saratoga for her first start, so that shows how much we thought about her,” Stidham said. “We very rarely run horses at Saratoga unless we are very high on them.”

Micheline fulfilled expectations by winning the Sorority at Monmouth Park a month later. She next was unplaced in her lone dirt start in Keeneland's Darley Alcibiades (G1).

Winner of the Honey Ryder at Gulfstream Park at 3, Micheline closed her sophomore season at Keeneland as runner-up in the Queen Elizabeth Challenge Cup (G1) Presented by Dixiana. In her first start of 2021, she won the March 6 Hillsborough (G2) at Tampa Bay Downs.

Stidham said Proxy's ability was not as evident early as his sister's was.

“Proxy is one of those horses who did everything right but not anything real flashy,” Stidham said. “He was never a 'wow' horse going into his first start.”

Proxy earned his first victory in November at Fair Grounds in his second start and next was second in the Lecomte (G3) and Risen Star (G2) Presented by Lamarque Ford. A winner of two races from six starts – all on dirt – with earnings of $227,700, he comes into the Stonestreet Lexington off a fourth-place effort in the Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby (G2) at Fair Grounds.

“After the Lexington, we will see how he runs and decide where we go from there,” Stidham said.

Brown will be going for his fourth consecutive victory and fifth overall in the Coolmore Jenny Wiley when he sends out Etiole, owned by Peter Brant, Mrs. M.V. Magnier and Mrs. Paul Shanahan, and Tamahere, owned by Swift Thoroughbreds, Madaket Stables and Wonder Stables.

Etoile will be making her first start since winning the E.P. Taylor (G1) at Woodbine in October. A Group 3 winner in France before coming to North America, she will be ridden by Javier Castellano and break from post four.

Tamahere, winner of the Sands Point (G2) in her U.S. debut in October, will be making her first start since finishing sixth in the Matriarch (G1) at Del Mar. Irad Ortiz Jr. has the mount and will break from post two.

Brown's winners in the Coolmore Jenny Wiley are Ball Dancing (2015), Sistercharlie (IRE) (2018) and Rushing Fall in 2019 and 2020.

The field for the Coolmore Jenny Wiley, with riders and weights from the rail, is: Micheline (Saez, 118 pounds), Tamahere (FR) (Irad Ortiz Jr., 118), Juliet Foxtrot (GB) (Tyler Gaffalione, 118), Etoile (FR) (Castellano, 120), Maxim Rate (Umberto Rispoli, 118) and La Signare (FR) (John Velazquez, 118).

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Arklow Recognized As 2020 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund’s Earner Of The Year

Donegal Racing's well-traveled Grade 1-winner Arklow was honored Wednesday for his exploits right at home as the 6-year-old horse was feted as the 2020 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund's Earner of the Year.

“We're very excited about this award for Arklow. It's very cool,” said Jerry Crawford, founder and president of the Des Moines-based Donegal Racing partnership. “This business is so, so hard for owners. When you get a horse that can pay some feed bills, it's gratifying in multiple ways to say nothing of all the excitement it creates.”

Now 7, Arklow was recognized at the Kentucky-bred Champions Awards ceremony, presented by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders (KTOB) and the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association (KTA), at Keeneland. Frank Penn, co-breeder of the $160,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase in 2015, accepted the trophy on Donegal's behalf.

The Brad Cox-trained Arklow earned $849,734 in his seven-race campaign last year, capped by taking Kentucky Downs' $1 million, Grade 3 Calumet Turf Cup for the second time in three years, sandwiched around a second in 2019. Arklow also finished second by a head in Churchill Downs' $100,000 Louisville Stakes (G3). The son of the late Claiborne Farm stallion Arch concluded 2020 by shipping out to Del Mar — his 12th different racetrack – to capture the Hollywood Turf Cup (G2).

The KTDF award recognizes Kentucky-bred horses racing much of the year in the Commonwealth and is based on earnings at Kentucky tracks. Arklow earned $608,184 racing in graded stakes at Kentucky Downs, Churchill Downs and Keeneland. He made an additional $80,000 while a close sixth in the $4 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland, though those earnings did not count toward the award.

“Donegal has always loved racing in Kentucky,” Crawford said. “The KTDF purse supplements make you love it even more. Take a horse like Arklow, who only ran in graded stakes in 2020. The Kentucky-bred incentive program rewards excellence, being staged against open company. As purses in Kentucky have increased, in no small measure because of the KTDF, so has the competition. So to be KTDF Earner of the Year becomes even more of a feat in which my partners and I take great pride.”

Cox, the 2020 Eclipse Award winner as North America's outstanding trainer, also was recognized Wednesday as the KTDF Trainer of the Year.

“The KTDF is a great program and makes lucrative opportunities for Kentucky horsemen,” Cox said. “Kentucky-bred horses compete world-wide, but it's obviously nice when you can race right here in our own state. It's an achievement, for sure, for Arklow to be the KTDF Earner of the Year, and I'm extremely proud to be the KTDF Trainer of the Year as well.”

For his career, Arklow is 8-7-2 in 31 starts with earnings of $2,666,116 for Donegal Racing, Joseph Bulger and the Estate of Peter Coneway. Those victories include New York's Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park in 2019.

“The KTDF awards have always been reflective of what's running within the circuit,” said Chauncey Morris, the KTA-KTOB's executive director. “To see a horse like Arklow and owner Donegal Racing at the highest level here in Kentucky just shows how we're evolving into the top tier racing jurisdiction in the United States.”

Crawford said Arklow got a couple of months off after running in the Breeders' Cup Turf for the third time.

“There's at least a 50-percent chance of him getting back to the races on May 1 in the Grade 1, Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic on Derby Day,” Crawford said. “And for the fourth straight year, we will be pointing for the Calumet Turf Cup at Kentucky Downs, where Arklow has had two wins and a second out of three tries.”

Arklow has raced on Kentucky Derby Day twice before, earning his first stakes victory in the 2017 American Turf (G2) and finishing fourth in the Old Forester in 2018. The Sept. 11 Calumet Turf Cup will run run as a Grade 2 stakes for the first time for 2021.

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