Mashallah and Deep Flame Light Up Keeneland Today

Two Weeks to the Breeders’ Cup, and Keeneland Is Already on Fire

The countdown is officially on. Keeneland hosts the Breeders’ Cup World Championships on October 30 and 31, and this weekend the track celebrates its 90th anniversary while Saturday’s Grade 2 Raven Run and Grade 3 Perryville both drew big 12-horse fields. If you like fast 3-year-olds, deep fields, and wide-open exotics, clear your Saturday afternoon.

Start with the Perryville, Race 7 at 4:12 p.m. ET, and a colt who simply refuses to run badly. Juddmonte’s homebred Deep Flame is the 7-5 morning-line favorite for the $350,000 race at seven furlongs. He has never finished worse than second, and his last start was a runner-up finish to Englishman in the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens, with Englishman widely viewed as the country’s best 3-year-old sprinter. Before that, he won the Grade 3 Maxfield at Churchill Downs by 5 3/4 lengths. Brad Cox trains him, and Irad Ortiz Jr. rides. The one worry is geography: he drew the outermost post in the 12-horse field. His biggest threat may be Obliteration, the richest horse in the race with more than $1 million in earnings. The Steve Asmussen trainee is 8-4-2-2 on dirt, returns to the main track after a try on the Kentucky Downs turf, and picks up Flavien Prat. The storyline to watch is Chief Wallabee, the Bill Mott colt who finished fourth in both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes and now cuts back from a mile to seven furlongs, still looking for his second career win. Throw in Doublecents, who rides a two-race win streak that includes the Harrods Creek at Churchill, and you have a race worth spreading on.

Then comes the Raven Run at 5:16 p.m. ET, and Mashallah looks like a filly on a mission. The Brendan Walsh trainee is the 8-5 morning-line choice with four wins in five starts, including the Grade 3 Prioress at Saratoga, the Tyson Gilpin at Colonial Downs, and a debut maiden score right here at Keeneland in April. In the Prioress she drew clear by five lengths, and Tyler Gaffalione rides from post 9. She will not have it easy. Juddmonte homebred Conceit enters off her first graded win in the Dogwood at Churchill Downs and sits at 4-1, while With a Kiss arrives undefeated as a daughter of 2016 Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia. Watch the pace, too. Plenty of early speed is signed on, and at seven furlongs that pressure can bite late.

Head north for a Canadian nightcap. At Woodbine, graded winner Brachetto faces eight rivals in the Grade 3 Ontario Derby, having won the Marine Stakes at Woodbine in June. Military Time, a Gun Runner colt carrying the silks of Gary Barber and St Elias Stable, is chasing his first graded win. Right behind it, the Ontario Fashion has a juicy subplot: Les Reys returns to defend her title at 7-2 on the morning line, with Emma-Jayne Wilson, Canada’s all-time winningest female jockey, aboard for the first time. The Mark Casse-trained Creed’s Gold, a winner on both turf and Woodbine’s all-weather surface, is the one she has to beat.

Out west, Santa Anita’s feature is the $80,000 Lure on the turf, where Artislas has gone from a summertime longshot to an October contender. In New York, Belmont Park hands the stage to the blue-collar heroes, with all 11 races on Saturday’s card carded as starter-allowance events for $1,085,000 in total purses.

For something completely different, Saturday night belongs to the Quarter Horses at The Downs at Albuquerque, where the AQHA Racing Challenge Championships put $888,000 on the line across five championship races, with first post at 6:05 p.m. local time (8:05 p.m. ET). Qualifiers from regional races across the United States, Canada, and Mexico converge for the night, headlined by the $285,000 AQHA Racing Challenge Championship (G1) at 440 yards, where KJ Desparado is the marquee name. The card also features the $175,000 Adequan Derby Challenge Championship (G3), the $150,000 Cox Ranch Distaff Challenge Championship (G1), the $150,000 John Deere Juvenile Challenge Championship (G2), where Mysterious Hero ships in as the headliner, and the $128,000 Q-Racing Video Distance Challenge Championship (G1) for the stamina specialists at 870 yards.

Sunday belongs to the marathoners. The $350,000 Rood and Riddle Dowager sends 12 fillies and mares 1 1/2 miles on the Keeneland turf as Race 7 at 4:12 p.m. ET. Fionn is the 3-1 favorite despite going unplaced in three starts this year, but the class is undeniable, since she is the only Grade 1 winner in the field after taking the 2025 Belmont Oaks Invitational by a nose. Will Walden’s Speed Shopper, the 7-2 second choice, returns to the course and distance where she won the Bewitch in the spring, while defending champion Venencia is back with a new trainer and will be a big price at 30-1 on the morning line. Sleeper alert: Pretty Tapit, for Joe Sharp, has never run in a stakes but won her last race by seven lengths.

That is a lot of quality packed into two days, and the ones to watch are easy to spot: Deep Flame trying to conquer post 12, Mashallah facing her first real pace fight, and Fionn looking to remind everyone why she is a Grade 1 winner. Two weeks from now, some of these horses could be the stars of the biggest weekend of the year. Enjoy the show.