Grade I Winner Simply Ravishing Tops Saturday's $200,000 Golden Rod

Nov 25, 2020

Harold Lerner LLC, Magdalena Racing and Nehoc Stables’ $350,000 Alcibiades (Grade I) winner Simply Ravishing will lead a field of 10 promising juvenile fillies that were entered in Saturday’s $200,000 Golden Rod (GII) at Churchill Downs.

          The Golden Rod has helped launch several fillies on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks including eventual Oaks winners Monomoy Girl, Rachel Alexandra and Silverbulletday. The 1 1/16-mile race is carded as Race 9 with a post time of 4:57 p.m. The race shares the spotlight on Saturday’s 12-race program with the $200,000 Kentucky Jockey Club (GII). First post is 1 p.m.

          Simply Ravishing, trained by Kenny McPeek, was a dominant 6 ¼-length winner of the Oct. 2 Alcibiades at Keeneland. The Laoban filly finished fourth in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (GI) on Nov. 6 behind Vequist, Dayoutoftheoffice and Girl Daddy.

          The three-time winner will be ridden by 2020 Preakness Stakes (GI) winning jockey Robby Albarado from post No. 8.

          Among the other rivals to Simply Ravishing in the Golden Rod is Kueber Racing’s undefeated $98,000 Rags to Riches winner Coach. Trained by Brad Cox, Coach is a perfect 3-for-3 in her young career. She’ll be joined in the starting gate by stablemate Travel Column. Owned by OXO Equine, Travel Column dazzled on debut by 4 ¼ lengths and returned with a third-place effort behind Simply Ravishing in the Alcibiades.

          Joe Talamo will have the call aboard Coach from post 3 while Florent Geroux will ride Travel Column from post 5.

          The Golden Rod field also includes WinStar Farm, Blazing Meadows Farm and Michael Lewis’ three-time Ohio-bred stakes winner Alexandria and Six Column Stables, Randy Bloch, Jim Gladden and Riverview Racing’s New York-bred stakes winner No Mo’ Spending.

          The complete field from the rail out (with jockey and trainer): Lady Lilly (Tyler Gaffalione, Steve Asmussen); No Mo Spending (Chris Landeros, Ian Wilkes); Coach (Talamo, Cox); Farsighted (Julien Leparoux, Rusty Arnold II); Travel Column (Geroux, Cox); Clairiere (Ricardo Santana Jr., Asmussen); Lady Traveler (Corey Lanerie, Dale Romans); Simply Ravishing (Albarado, McPeek); Princess Theorem (John Velazquez, Brendan Walsh); Alexandria (Gerardo Corrales, Tim Hamm).