Options are limitless for James M. Miller’s Daisy Devine, who won Friday’s Pin Oak Valley View (G3) in her turf debut.
“(The
Pin Oak Valley View) looked like a good race for her, 3-year-old
fillies, so there was no reason why she wouldn’t like the turf as good a
mover as she is, so we tried it,” trainer Andrew McKeever said
concerning the surface switch.
“I
think she was losing her form a little bit and now she’s proven that
she’s back and a pretty versatile filly,” he said. “I think you could
run her on any surface and get the same result.”
McKeever said the 3-year-old Kafwain filly looked good this morning, and that her next start had not been determined.
Daisy
Devine had two three-furlong works in :36.20 and :38 over Keeneland’s
turf course in preparation for Friday’s race. She went off as the
second-longest shot at odds of 43-1 despite having a graded stakes win
on dirt.
“I
thought she might be,” McKeever said about Daisy Devine’s longshot
status. “She’s tailed off on her form, but I didn’t think she’d go off
that long – not being a Grade 2 winner.”
Daisy
Devine’s first stakes win came in the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) before
finishing seventh in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), fifth in the Iowa Oaks (G3)
and third in the Indiana Oaks (G2). Her win in the Pin Oak Valley View
gave McKeever his first Keeneland stakes victory.
“It’s a nice feeling. I’m very happy,” McKeever said.
Daisy
Devine, a $5,500 Keeneland September Yearling Sale graduate, is one of
about 20 horses under McKeever’s care at Keeneland. He said she will
make several starts at Fair Grounds before returning to the Keeneland
turf in the spring.