LEXINGTON, Ky. – After a front-loaded start to the fall meet, with 11 stakes over three days positioned as ideally timed Breeders’ Cup preps, Keeneland takes a breath and resets. Wednesday’s card starts the rest of this run, the meet running on a Wednesday-through-Sunday schedule, with the exception of the short final week that closes on Saturday, Oct. 28. Exactly half the meet’s stakes are in the books, with 11 stakes through the remaining days. Most of the meet’s remaining fare is more like Wednesday’s card, with eight races topped by a $100,000 allowance at a mile on the turf for fillies and mares. Grace Darling and Up and Down, both in new barns this year, have previous success at similar distances. Up and Down scored her maiden win going a mile at the Keeneland spring meet and was beaten less than a length with a second in the Alywow sprinting on the Woodbine turf. Switched to Graham Motion’s barn, she was between horses before angling out to finish a game second by a neck going seven furlongs at Kentucky Downs. Due to the undulations of that course, seven furlongs plays more like a one-turn mile. Irish-born Grace Darling moved to the United States and to Brian Lynch this year to win her maiden going 7 1/2 furlongs on Gulfstream’s turf. She was bumped at the start and never could get a rally going against tough company in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks in March. Given a freshening, she returned in a mile allowance on Sept. 16 at Churchill and was again bothered at the start en route to finishing seventh. She will likely be tighter for her second run off the bench. :: Bet Keeneland with confidence! Get DRF PPs, Picks and more. The problem facing both these late-runners is a lack of true, committed speed to rally into. Whiskey Lullaby, who likes being forwardly placed, is making her first start since being picked up by Robertino Diodoro out of a maiden-claiming win at Saratoga. She would be a threat at a price on the front end. The Wednesday card also includes a pair of $100,000 maiden special weights at a mile on the turf for 2-year-olds, a $70,000 dirt sprint for that division, and two starter-allowance races. There is a $6,977 carryover into the Super High Five on the last race of the day. Saez returns with success Luis Saez, returning to the races from more than a month away, came back with three wins in the first three days of Keeneland’s fall meet, including a score in the Grade 1 Alcibiades with Candied on opening day, to sit in a tie for second in the early rider standings. Saez fractured his wrist and dislocated a collarbone in an Aug. 23 spill at Saratoga. He returned to competition on Friday’s opening day at Keeneland with two wins, piloting Candied and then taking the nightcap with Johny’s Fireball to sweep the late double. “She has a big future,” a beaming Saez said after his return Grade 1. “The first time I got on her in the morning, I knew she was pretty special, and she just won this big race. We’re so grateful, and thanks to [trainer] Mr. Todd [Pletcher] – he always does a great job with the horses – and to the team.” Saez, second in the rider standings at the 2023 Keeneland spring meet before taking the Churchill Downs spring title, also rode Arella Star to a win in a claiming race Sunday. From 27 total mounts in the first three days of racing, he finished in the top three another eight times, including in two graded stakes, giving him a 41 percent on-the-board strike rate. First Keeneland wins Trainer Bonnie Pittman and apprentice jockey Matilda Burnham teamed to score the first Keeneland win for each on Sunday, as Navy Soul was a half-length winner in a claiming race. Pittman, of Evansville, Ind., has now won 16 of 65 starts in a career that began in 2014. She has trained the 4-year-old gelding Navy Soul throughout his career for a record of three wins from 11 starts. Burnham began riding this year, and the seven-pound apprentice has now ridden two races at this Keeneland fall meet. The rider, who is splitting her time this fall between Keeneland and Horseshoe Indianapolis, is 9 for 123 lifetime with the win. Along with Pittman, two other trainers recorded their first Keeneland wins – and in one case, first career win – on opening weekend. Riley Mott saddled his first Keeneland winner as Bourbon Breeze swept to a 3 1/4-length win in a maiden race on opening day. Mott, the son and former assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, began training on his own last year. In Sunday’s third race, a claiming event, Arella Star became the first winner for trainer-owner Yoni Orantes, a former assistant to Ian Wilkes. Orantes has saddled three individual horses to eight starts. Arella Star was making her second start for Orantes since being claimed by Wilkes this summer. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.