The Spa Spot: Morning Breeze
Rain is in the forecast for the afternoon, which is not good news on a day when six of the 10 races on the program are scheduled to be run on turf. First post is 1 p.m.
- The $100,000 Troy is the feature race of the first day of the new race week and it has a field of capable turf sprinters. Regally Ready won the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs last year, but is winless in four starts in 2012. He will tangle with Perfect Officer, who was third in the Turf Sprint, and Bridgetown, winner of the Troy last year. The Troy will be run as the fifth race on the program at 3:14 p.m.
- Prescott Brown, the Marylou Whitney homebred son of her star mare Bird Town is entered in the third race, a dirt sprint for maiden 3-year-olds. Trainer Nick Zito trained the colt on the grass and entered him in a turf race earlier in the meet. He scratched out of that race and is going on the dirt today. Bird Town was the 2003 Kentucky Oaks winner.
- The field for the Grade 1 Alabama will be drawn today. An accomplished bunch of runners will make up the field and it could turn out to be the top stakes race of the season.