Immensitude, Forever After All Headline Bewitch Stakes
The $350,000 Bewitch Stakes (G3T), won three times by multiple grade 1 winner War Like Goddess in 2021-23, marks the final graded stakes feature of the 15-day Keeneland spring meet.
While there’s no War Like Goddess in this year’s running, a competitive field of nine older fillies and mares assembled for the April 25 Keeneland closing day finale. Favoritism for the 1 1/2-mile turf route will likely fall on two mares exiting winter Florida campaigns, Immensitude and Forever After All . In their most recent effort, the pair chased home the victorious Beach Bomb in the 1 3/8-mile The Very One Stakes (G3T) March 1 at Gulfstream Park.
Wathnan Racing’s Immensitude, a group 3 winner in France but winless in her seven North American tries, closed to finish a hard-trying second by a length in The Very One. The effort was the first in nearly four months for the consistent daughter of Lawman , who has hit the board in her last four outings for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.
2024 Eclipse-winning jockey Flavien Prat takes over on Immensitude from Junior Alvarado, the mare’s pilot in her last five starts.
Forever After All, a hard-luck fifth in the The Very One beaten only 1 3/4 lengths, will look to gain the upper hand on Immensitude for trainer Brendan Walsh Friday. There’s no hotter barn at Keeneland right now, with the Walsh barn winning at a 50% strike rate in stakes races run over the last month at the Lexington oval. Walsh runners Gosger and Gin Gin captured the the April 12 Lexington Stakes (G3) and April 18 Doubledogdare Stakes (G3), respectively, while Kentucky Derby (G1) contender East Avenue dropped a nose decision in the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) April 8.
A homebred for Dixiana Farms, Forever After All will be eyeing her second graded stakes win after rallying to defeat last year’s absent Bewitch winner, Chop Chop , by a nose in the 1 1/2-mile La Prevoyante Stakes (G3T) to kick off her 6-year-old season.
With Tyler Gaffalione, her rider in her last three starts, sidelined with an ankle injury, Irad Ortiz Jr. gets the call on Forever After All.
Rodolphe Brisset-trained Dazzlin’ Dictator , a possible pacesetter, may have the stamina to take them all the way in the Bewitch. Purchased for $360,000 in January 2024 at the Fasig-Tipton Digital Lothenbach Dispersal of Horses of Racing Age Sale, the American Pharoah filly was well beaten in the 1 1/16-mile Latonia Stakes in her last start but dominated her rivals by 11 1/4 lengths in a Feb. 7 second-level allowance optional claimer going 1 1/4 miles at Turfway Park.
Entries: Bewitch S. Presented by Keeneland Sales (G3T)
Keeneland, Friday, April 25, 2025, Race 8
- Grade IIIT
- 1 1/2m
- Turf
- $350,000
- 4 yo’s & up Fillies and Mares
- 4:07 PM (local)
