Catch a Glimpse the underdog in Jenny Wiley

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Mark Casse won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes last year with one superstar turf mare – and he’ll be trying to deny another one Saturday.

Casse won the 2016 Jenny Wiley with Tepin and now will send out Catch a Glimpse to try to upset Lady Eli, who figures as an odds-on favorite in the 29th running of the $350,000 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.

“It looks like she’s back to her old self,” Casse said of Catch a Glimpse, a 4-year-old filly who won the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf amid an eight-race win streak that was followed by losses in her last three starts. “The way she’s trained, we’re looking for a big race right out of the box.”

Catch a Glimpse, with Florent Geroux to ride, will break from post 3 as the logical frontrunner in a field of eight fillies and mares in the 1 1/16-mile Jenny Wiley.

Lady Eli, with Irad Ortiz Jr. in from New York, was assigned the rail post for Chad Brown, who won the 2015 Jenny Wiley with Ball Dancing. A winner in seven of nine starts, Lady Eli, 5, has been a standout since the fall of her 2-year-old season.

From the hedge, this is the Jenny Wiley field: Lady Eli, Goodyearforroses, Catch a Glimpse, Dickinson, Kitten’s Roar, Time and Motion, Illuminant, and Quidura.

The Jenny Wiley, the 10th of 11 races, is the last of four legs in an all-stakes pick-four wager. The other stakes include:

◗ Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington (race 9). A well-matched field of 10 3-year-olds is entered in this 1 1/16-mile race, with Resiliency, No Dozing, and the Bob Bafferttrained West Coast among those likely to draw high interest.

◗ $100,000 Giant’s Causeway (race 8). Lady Aurelia makes her long-awaited 4-year-old debut amid an oversubscribed field of filly-and-mare turf sprinters.

◗ Grade 3, $200,000 Ben Ali (race 7). Graded stakes winners Eagle and Bird Song look like the top threats in the 1 1/8-mile race, which drew eight older horses.

The Ben Ali normally is run on the second Sunday of the meet, but Keeneland is dark this Sunday because of the Easter holiday. Racing will resume the following Wednesday for the only five-day week of the 15-day spring meet. Closing day is April 28.

Whiting nearly back

Trainer Lynn Whiting, who 25 years ago this May celebrated the pinnacle of a lifetime in racing by winning the 1992 Kentucky Derby with 17-1 shot Lil E. Tee, is undergoing physical therapy after spending six weeks in a Louisville, Ky., hospital following a stroke and hopes to be back working at his Churchill Downs barn within a week or so.

Whiting, 77, said by phone Wednesday with his typical wry humor that he is “getting along all right,” but, “I don’t have any blue ribbons hanging off me just yet. I kind of lost my edge for a little bit there.”

Whiting, who was diagnosed with a blood disorder several years ago, suffered the stroke in late February while wintering at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and was flown shortly afterward to Louisville. His small stable has been overseen in the interim by fellow trainer Ron Moquett and was scheduled to ship this week to Churchill.

Whiting’s father, Lyle, was a jockey in the 1920s before becoming a trainer on the New England circuit and eventually migrating to the Midwest. Lynn Whiting, who has worked on the racetrack since he was a young boy, makes his permanent residence in Louisville with his wife, Nellie. They have two adult daughters and three grandchildren.

A 1996 book entitled The Longest Shot, authored by John Eisenberg, provides rich biographical detail on Whiting and Lil E. Tee.

◗ A fund-raising Cajun dinner to benefit the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, which will be attended by many of the top jockeys at Keeneland, will be held after the races April 23 at The Castle, the locally famous landmark just west of the track on Versailles Road. Tickets for the event are $75 apiece and are available at www.pdjf.org.

◗ Churchill officials announced Wednesday that the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning performer Harry Connick Jr. will sing the national anthem before the Kentucky Derby this year.