Star router Next and the speedy No Nay Mets are among the top contenders in two of Churchill Downs' featured stakes races May 1 leading up to Kentucky Derby weekend.
Next, trained by William Cowans for Michael Foster, was simply sensational last year during his 5-year-old campaign. A winner in three of his four trips to the post, the gray/roan son of Not This Time won his trio of outings by a combined 39 lengths. He culminated his season with a 25-length romp in the 1 1/2-mile Greenwood Cup Stakes (G3) at Parx Racing Sept. 23 and was put away for the remainder of the year.
The gelding returns to the races in the $200,000 Isaac Murphy Marathon Stakes, a 1 1/2-mile contest for older horses, with Luan Machado, his rider for his last six starts, in the irons.
Masqueparade and Classic Causeway, the 1-2 finishers from the Temperence Hill Stakes last month at Oaklawn Park, figure to be the key challengers in the Isaac Murphy.
No Nay Mets Seeks Return to Form in William Walker
A race later on the card, multiple stakes winner No Nay Mets will try to redeem himself in the $300,000 William Walker Stakes for 3-year-olds sprinting 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf.
Trained by George Weaver, No Nay Mets dazzled in his three stakes wins as a 2-year-old before finishing a solid fourth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1T) at Santa Anita Park. He faded to finish fourth in his sophomore debut in Keeneland's Palisades Stakes last month after pressing the early pace. The No Nay Never colt's conqueror in that race, Fandom, is missing from the field but 2-3 finishers, Mansa Musa and Refuel, are back and looking for their first stakes win.
