Luring in accomplished graded stakes-winning fillies Just F Y I, Candied, and Tarifa, the $350,000 Doubledogdare Stakes (G3) drew a field worthy of a grade 1 April 18 at Keeneland.
Candied, one of two grade 1 winners in the race along with champion Just F Y I, makes her 4-year-old unveiling for trainer Todd Pletcher in the 1 1/16-mile Doubledogdare. The hard-knocking Candy Ride filly only won one start last year at 3, but consistently placed against top-level company, losing the Alabama Stakes (G1) by a head and twice finishing third against older rivals in the Spinster Stakes (G1) and Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1).
While she touts one of the highest Equibase Speed Figures in the field (102), it should be noted that in Candied's first race off the layoff last year she was a distant fourth in Keeneland's Ashland Stakes (G1). Owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Bobby Flay Thoroughbreds, Candied, unraced since the Breeders' Cup, must overcome a 5 1/2-length layoff Saturday.
Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. has the call on Candied.
Tarifa, a Keeneland debut winner as a 2-year-old, returns to the Lexington oval for the second start of her 4-year-old campaign. The Godolphin homebred, a multiple graded stakes winner last year for trainer Brad Cox, exits a distant third-place finish in the B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park.
Another consistent sort, having won three times and hit the board another three times in graded stakes company, Tarifa secures the services of Florent Geroux for the Doubledogdare. Cox, the leading trainer at the 2024 fall Keeneland meet, boasts a strike rate of 53% winners in Keeneland stakes over the past year.
George Krikorian's homebred Just F Y I, second in the Ashland Stakes here a year ago, will be looking to improve off a runner-up finish in her comeback race at Gulfstream Park March 13. The allowance optional claimer was the 2023 Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old filly's first outing since a disappointing sixth-place effort in the 2024 Acorn Stakes (G1) last June.
Junior Alvarado, Just F Y I's pilot for all seven of her career starts, will be aboard the Bill Mott trainee.
Interestingly, the Doubledogdare sports three also-rans from last year's Kentucky Oaks (G1), with Just F Y I finishing the best of the trio with a second-place finish behind eventual Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna in second.
Among the other contenders for the Doubledogdare include 2024 Kentucky Oaks starter Gin Gin, who makes her debut for the Brendan Walsh barn after transferring from Cox, graded stakes winner and 2024 Spinster runner-up Occult, Dreaming of Mo, and Neon Icon.
Keeneland, Friday, April 18, 2025, Race 9Entries: Baird Doubledogdare S. (G3)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Just F Y I (KY) Junior Alvarado 118 William I. Mott 7/2 2 2Gin Gin (KY) Jose L. Ortiz 118 Brendan P. Walsh 30/1 3 3Neon Icon (KY) Luis Saez 118 George R. Arnold II 20/1 4 4Dreaming of Mo (KY) Corey J. Lanerie 118 Dale L. Romans 10/1 5 5Tarifa (KY) Florent Geroux 120 Brad H. Cox 3/1 6 6Candied (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 118 Todd A. Pletcher 8/5 7 7Occult (KY) Flavien Prat 118 Chad C. Brown 7/2
