Nine Challenge Wise Dan in Shadwell Turf

A whopping seven Breeders’ Cup World Championships ‘Win and You’re In’ races will go this weekend at Keeneland, including the $750,000 Shadwell Turf Mile on Saturday. The race will feature 2012 Horse of the Year Wise Dan, who will be seeking his ninth straight win in his final prep before trying to defend his title in the BC Turf Mile on November 2 at Santa Anita. Wise Dan will also be trying for his second consecutive Shadwell win, and will likely go off at even lower odds that the 3-5 he returned in the 2012 race.

Argentine shipper looking for an upset

Aligned against him will be nine hopefuls, including Winning Prize, a Group I winner in Argentina who showed no problems shipping north when he won his first US try in a one-mile $100,000 AOC event on the Del Mar turf in late August. Breaking from the outside #10 post in the Shadwell, the front-running Wise Dan will have to contend with early speed just to his inside with Silver Max, who has won three of his last four, the most recent a Grade II score at 1 1/16 miles on the Saratoga turf.

Most others will be at long odds against champ

Others with an outside shot at upsetting the champ are Willcox Inn, second in the Shadwell last year, and recent winner of the Grade III Washington Park Handicap on the all-weather track at Arlington; Illinois-bred Coalport, a Kitten’s Joy colt that who won the Franklin-Simpson Mile at Kentucky Downs last month, but who has yet to win a graded-stakes race; and Skyring, who took the Grade II Dixie Stakes at Pimlico in the spring just ahead of Willcox Inn, but who has been able to do no better than sixth in his last two starts.