KEENELAND Company lines point to Fault

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Michelle Lovell didn’t have a starter in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last weekend at Keeneland, but she did take keen interest in the Grade 1 race.

Lovell’s stable star, Fault, had finished a good third behind Uni and La Coronel in the Grade 2 Sands Point last month at Belmont Park. So, when La Coronel won the QE II and Uni finished a decent fourth, Lovell became further convinced that Fault will stand an excellent chance Friday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Valley View on the Keeneland turf.

“It flatters my filly, for sure, that they ran so well,” said Lovell, who claimed Fault for $50,000 in May on behalf of the Agave Racing Stable of Mark Martinez. The Valley View “didn’t come up very easy, so we’ll need a top effort again. But I’m really happy with how she came out of her race in New York and how she’s been training. She’s really full of herself right now.”

Fault, with Brian Hernandez Jr. to ride, was assigned post 7 in an oversubscribed field of 3-year-old fillies in the 27th running of the Valley View, to be run at 1 1/16 miles as the ninth of 10 races. From five starts for Agave, Fault won the Grade 3 Pucker Up on the Aug. 12 Arlington Million card, giving Lovell the first graded victory of her 14-year training career.

There are numerous viable challengers for Fault, who, like many of her opponents, will be looking to advance to the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere on Nov. 24 at Churchill Downs.

Those rivals include Journey Home, beaten just a neck by Fault in the Pucker Up; Lovely Bernadette, third in the Pucker Up and winner of the $200,000 Indiana Grand in September; Youngest Daughter, winner of the Ta Wee at Indiana Grand in July; Chastise, a Saratoga allowance winner last out whose owner and breeder, Claiborne Farm, also is the breeder of Fault; Defiant Honor, winner of the restricted Riskaverse at Saratoga in August; Dolce Lili, making her stakes debut for the ever-dangerous Chad Brown barn; and Sweeping Paddy, winner of the Grade 3 Regret in June at Churchill Downs.

Sweeping Paddy was perhaps a bit too sharp before fading in the Grade 3 Lake George on opening day of the Saratoga meet. The Paddy O’Prado filly has since been regrouped and recharged by trainer Dale Romans.

“She’s better than her Saratoga race,” Romans said.

In all, 15 are entered in the Valley View, but only as many as 14 can start.

The card includes several other races with overflow fields, most notably a $73,000 allowance (race 7) boasting seven stakes winners in its main body of 12. Foremost among those filly and mare turf sprinters are Fair Point, winner of the Sen. Ken Maddy last year on the Breeders’ Cup undercard at Santa Anita, and Exaggerated, winner of the Giant’s Causeway at the 2016 Keeneland spring meet.

That contentious turf sprint and the Valley View are part of a late pick four wager (races 7-10) with a $200,000 pool guarantee.

First post Friday is 1:05 p.m. Eastern. Sunny skies and a high of 76 are in the forecast.