Prairie Bayou top 3 meet again

They may not be the likes of some former Kentucky Cup Classic winners – such as Tabasco Cat (1994), Thunder Gulch (1995), Silver Charm (1998), Captain Steve (2000), or Roses in May (2004) – but the runners set to line up for Saturday’s renewal of the $100,000 stakes at Turfway Park are a well-matched group with their own diverse accomplishments. Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile race for older horses is the second running of the Kentucky Cup Classic since it returned from a six-year hiatus.

The Kentucky Cup Classic is among six stakes on the card Saturday at Turfway, topped by the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby, a Kentucky Derby prep race.

Seven of the eight in this field are stakes winners, including Surgical Strike, who won the Grade 3 Arlington Classic in 2016. Midnight Pleasure was third in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity in 2016. Cooptado, a Group 1 winner in Argentina and Singapore, is a millionaire, and Canadian Classic winner Sir Dudley Digges is approaching that mark.

An affinity for Turfway’s synthetic track is likely to be a factor in this race, which is led by the top three finishers in the track’s Prairie Bayou Stakes in December – Nun the Less, Lanier, and Royal Son. Multiple stakes winner Nun the Less subsequently went on to finish seventh in the Grade 3 Razorback Stakes on dirt at Oaklawn. Trained by Cipriano Contreras, he is now back on a synthetic surface, on which he has never been off the board.

Lanier is the only horse in this field who has yet to win a stakes, although he has finsished second in stakes three times.

Royal Son, trained by Kellyn Gorder, has won 3 of 6 starts at Turfway, including the 2017 Prairie Bayou and the 2015 John Battaglia Memorial Stakes.

Nun the Less, a late runner, drew the rail under Walter De La Cruz, while Lanier, who prefers to stalk or attend the pace, bookends the field in the outside slot under Declan Cannon. Royal Son drew post 6 with Luan Machado in the irons.

Midnight Pleasure rebounded from a fourth in the Prairie Bayou to win the Forego Stakes at Turfway and run second in a local allowance, beaten a nose. The gelding was Grade 1-placed as a juvenile in 2016.

Surgical Strike won the 2016 WEBN Stakes and Battaglia Memorial at Turfway, then finished third in the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes (now the Jeff Ruby) there. He is seeking his first win since he took the Arlington Classic in May 2016.

Cooptado is another accomplished runner looking to turn things around. The 9-year-old gelding was Argentina’s champion 3-year-old in 2013, but has just one win since coming to the United States in 2017.

Rounding out the field are a pair for owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey and trainer Mike Maker, who teamed to win this race last year with Camelot Kitten. Sniper Kitten won last year’s Mystic Lake Derby at Canterbury and is coming off a runner-up effort in the Tropical Park Derby in December on the Gulfstream turf. Sir Dudley Digges won the 2016 Queen’s Plate and captured last year’s Barbados Gold Cup.