LEXINGTON, Ky. – Nakatomi seems happy to be back at his Keeneland base for Friday’s Grade 2, $350,000 Phoenix Stakes, as attested by his strong training here in recent weeks after a career-best effort to win his first Grade 1 out of town. Horsemen are happy to be here, too, as Keeneland opens its lucrative fall meet Friday. Keeneland will run 17 days from Oct. 4-26, generally on a Wednesday-through-Sunday schedule. The track will card 22 stakes worth a record $9.85 million, including the richest non-Breeders’ Cup race in track history, Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Coolmore Turf Mile. There’s no lack of money available to the bread-and-butter horses, either. Opening weekend includes allowance purses as large as $130,000 and maiden special weights up to $100,000 on this booming Kentucky circuit, with funds available to statebreds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund. Horsemen have responded to those purses by flocking to the entry box. The first three cards of the Keeneland meet have average field sizes of 11.3 entrants, 10.8 entrants, and 12.4 entrants, respectively. As always, this meet is front-loaded with its stakes to provide ideal prep spacing into the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 1-2 at Del Mar. Eleven of the 22 stakes will be contested on FallStars weekend, the first three days of the meet, including all but one of the Grade 1s. Eight of those 11 stakes are Win and You’re In automatic qualifiers to various Breeders’ Cup races. All three of Friday’s co-features fall in this category, with the Phoenix joined by the Grade 1, $600,000 Alcibiades and Grade 2, $350,000 Jessamine. Saturday’s Win and You’re In races are the Coolmore Turf Mile, the Grade 1, $600,000 Breeders’ Futurity, and the Grade 2, $350,000 Thoroughbred Club of America. Rounding out the qualifiers on Sunday are the Grade 1, $600,000 Spinster and the Grade 2, $350,000 Bourbon. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. “With Keeneland just having completed a record September yearling sale, there’s so much energy and excitement on the grounds that we can’t wait to share with our fans and horsemen this fall meet,” Keeneland president and CEO Shannon Arvin said in a press release. “We are thrilled to offer record purse money this race meet, which attracts the best horses in the country to Keeneland, many of them potential Breeders’ Cup contenders.” As at Keeneland’s spring meet in April, racegoers will have to navigate the ongoing construction, the largest facility update in the track’s history. The project centers on a three-level paddock building that will include additional ticketed areas, administration offices, and a reimagined paddock. Work began in January and is expected to be completed by September 2025. The ongoing construction will move to night shifts during the meet, and noise-dampening protocols have been put in place for the equine population. Regardless of the state of Keeneland, trainer Wesley Ward figures to be a force at the meet. The trainer bases here year-round and has won 10 meet titles as leading trainer, including at this year’s spring meet. He has 11 horses entered on FallStars weekend – including Nakatomi, who, ironically, is making his first Keeneland start this year in the Phoenix for older dirt sprinters. Nakatomi, now 5, won the 2021 Bowman Mill Stakes at Keeneland and was second, beaten less than a length, in the 2023 Phoenix, using that as a springboard to a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita. This year, Nakatomi has kept his show on the road. After finishing third in the Pelican Stakes at Tampa Bay, he was a fine third in the Group 1 Golden Shaheen in Dubai. Ward, who is used to campaigning horses internationally, gave the gelding plenty of time to recover from that effort. He responded with a victory four months later in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt on July 27 at Saratoga, posting a Beyer Speed Figure of 105 to match the career high he earned in the BC Sprint. :: SAVE BIG with a DRF Keeneland Handicapping Package “He’s really coming into his own,” Ward said after that effort. “He’s a lightly raced 5-year-old. We only run him a few times a year. I try to give my horses winters off, and this guy is a really special horse to be around.” Nakatomi shipped back to Keeneland after the Vanderbilt and has been working steadily here. He comes into the Phoenix off back-to-back bullet works, perhaps indicating he is ready to come out of the gate running as he did in the Vanderbilt. Ward said he “imagined him being a little bit farther back,” as he was placed in the Phoenix and BC Sprint last fall. However, a fresh Nakatomi had other ideas, pressing the pace in second under Tyler Gaffalione, who rides him again Friday, before kicking clear in the stretch. “On paper, the race was loaded with speed, but he was fresh and he hadn’t raced in some time, so he was eager,” Ward said. “When he bounced out of there that first jump, Tyler kind of went with it.” Depending on how Nakatomi breaks Friday, his company, or his target, could be the lightly raced Federal Judge, drawn on the rail for Brad Cox and the hot-riding Flavien Prat. Federal Judge is coming off a front-running allowance score at Saratoga. The veteran campaigner Here Mi Song, drawn in post 2, also likes to be forwardly placed. The Grade 1-placed gelding showed an affinity for Keeneland winning the Grade 3 Commonwealth in April 2023. Comedy Town also is likely to be up front as he looks for his fourth consecutive win, with a pair of stakes scores at Gulfstream to his credit. Millionaire Manny Wah, winless since taking the 2022 Phoenix, would love a hot pace to rally into. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.