Dandona

With June around the corner, the graded stakes calendar heats back up as Churchill Downs hosts its Stephen Foster Preview on Saturday. The local prep for the June 28 running of the GI Stephen Foster Stakes, the GIII Blame Stakes is one of six higher-level races on the card and could be deemed as wide-open. Wathnan Racing's Hit Show (Candy Ride {Arg}) has the class edge though. The 2025 winner of the G1 Dubai World Cup returned to Meydan back in late March, but was unable to duplicate the feat....

Last year, no one could have foreseen Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro) would use the GIII Florida Oaks--a turf race for sophomore fillies that offers no GI Kentucky Oaks points--as an unlikely springboard to the 3-year-old filly championship. This year, it was Tagermeen Racing's Dandona (f, 3, Tiz the Law--Tulsa Queen, by Cactus Ridge) who captured the 1 1/16-mile event at Tampa Bay Downs and, if her $1.05-million purchase price when bloodstock agent Mahmud Mouni picked her up from Raul Reyes's Kings Equine consignment at the 2025 OBS Spring sale of 2-year-olds...

10th-Gulfstream, $42,000, Msw, 8-31, 2yo, f, 1m 70y (AWT) (off turf), 1:43.63, ft, 1/2 length. DANDONA (f, 2, Tiz the Law--Tulsa Queen {SW & GSP-Can, SW-USA, $211,381}, by Cactus Ridge) was a pricey in-training purchase this past spring and she started her career on the tapeta after this maiden was rained off the turf course. Given 2-5 favoritism on the back of two bullets from her last three works, the filly was content to watch the race unfold from the back of the pack as pacesetters rolled through :23.59 and...

7th-SAR, $100k, Msw, 2yo, f, 6f, 2:55p.m. ET Heading out from the barn of Cherie DeVaux, PAIGE TURNER (Army Mule) debuts here against a full field of maidens in this main track baby dash. A $350,000 OBSMAR pick up this year, the filly is a half-sister to GISW Speed Boat Beach (Bayern). To the outside is Celebrity Quest (Nyquist), a $525,000 KEESEP graduate who is out of a half-sister to GISW Power Broker (Pulpit). Another of the dam's half-siblings is the mother of MGISW Seize the Grey (Arrogate). This is...