On Saturday, Mountaineer Park will host the 45th running of the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby. A field of nine sophomore colts and geldings will compete for the purse of $750,000 in the mile and an eighth race.
The morning line favorite at odds of 9-5 is West Coast invader Candy Boy for trainer John Sadler. Corey Nakatani will be aboard the three-year-old son of Candy Ride and the pair will break from the outside in the field of nine. After a thirteenth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, the bay colt came back to finish second in the Los Alamitos Derby behind the undefeated Shared Belief. He is attempted to earn his second graded stakes victory.
Second choice at 5-2 is another leftover from the Triple Crown season, Tapiture. Trained by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Rosie Napravnik, the chestnut son of Tapit rebounded off of a fifteenth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby to win the Matt Winn Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs in June. He has been on the board in seven of his nine lifetime starts and the multiple graded stakes winner will break from post five.
Also in the field is the last-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, Vicar’s in Trouble. The Mike Maker-trained son of Into Mischief has been tabbed at 3-1 on the morning line with Alan Garcia slated to be in the irons. The pair will carry the familiar red and white silks of Ken and Sarah Ramsey. He rebounded off of his poor effort in Louisville to finish third in the Iowa Derby (G3) in his most recent start in June.
The field is set for the $1 million Haskell, where Nyquist will be trying to re-stake his claim as the top three-year-old in the country.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $300,000 United Nations Stakes. Scheduled to be run at a mile and three-eighths on the turf, the Grade 1 event has drawn a field of ten colts and geldings.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes, a key prep race for the Haskell Invitational (G1). The Grade 3 event will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth and has drawn a field of seven three-year-olds.
With five grade 1 races and a grade 2, the undercard for the June 11 Belmont stakes could be the best single day of racing on the calendar outside of the Breeders’ Cup.
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