Test Runners Ragtime, Echo Sound Meet Again in Dogwood

Parx Racing offers the richest card in North America Sept. 20, featuring a seven-stakes day topped by the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby (G1) and $1 million Cotillion Stakes (G1). Saturday's second-most lucrative program is at Churchill Downs. Three traditional races worth up to $300,000 apiece are on deck, plus an overnight stakes that carries a purse of up to $175,000. A graded race in the four-stakes sequence is the $300,000 Dogwood Stakes (G3), a seven-furlong main track sprint that lured a couple of grade 1 class droppers in Ragtime and Echo Sound—second and sixth, respectively, in the Aug. 2 Test Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course. Delightful Claire, runner-up in the Prioress Stakes (G3) in her last start, leads the rest of the opposition in the eight-horse lineup, which is restricted to 3-year-old fillies. Godolphin's Ragtime, beaten for the first time in the Test after two earlier romps in maiden and allowance company, sheds blinkers for the Dogwood after rallying to take the lead before being run down in the closing strides of the Test to finish a neck behind victorious Kilwin. Junior Alvarado travels to Churchill Downs for the mount on the Bill Mott-trained daughter of Union Rags, who has raced exclusively at Saratoga over her short career. Kilwin's stablemate, Gabriel "Spider" Duignan's Echo Sound, will look to bounce back after coming up empty late in the Test, the first time in her seven-race career in which she has not been either first or second. She is a dual stakes winner this year, having won the six-furlong Ms. Preakness Stakes (G3) in May at Pimlico Race Course and the Victory Ride Stakes (G3) at Saratoga in July. Those efforts made the Rusty Arnold trainee the Test favorite. With regular jockey Luis Saez riding at Parx Saturday, Florent Geroux picks up the ride on the rail-drawn filly. Also seeking to rebound from a loss as the favorite is Rigney Racing's Delightful Claire, who proved no match for runaway winner Praying in the Aug. 30 Prioress, her stakes debut. In supporting stakes action Six 3-year-old males also sprint seven furlongs in the Harrods Creek Stakes, among them Valene Farms' Smoken Wicked, who won the July 25 Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at Saratoga for trainer Dallas Stewart before a seventh-place finish in the Aug. 23 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes (G1). Godolphin's Immersive, last year's champion 2-year-old filly for trainer Brad Cox, looks to rebound from a distant second in the July 19 Coaching Club American Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1) with a drop in class to face six rivals in the 1 1/16-mile Seneca Overnight Stakes. Five horses entered in the Sept. 19 St. Louis Derby at Fairmount Park, among them West Virginia Derby (G3) winner Chunk of Gold, are cross-entered in the $300,000 Bourbon Flight Stakes going the Preakness Stakes (G1) distance of 1 3/16 miles. Scratches from both races appear likely as horsemen weigh their options.