Defending Champion Golden Pal Headlines Field for Saturday's Woodford Presented by FanDuel

Mrs. John Magnier, Derrick Smith, Michael Tabor and Westerberg Limited’s Golden Pal heads a field of nine entered Wednesday for Saturday’s 26^th running of the $350,000 Woodford (G2) Presented by FanDuel going 5½ furlongs over the Keeneland turf course.

The Woodford will be the first of five graded stakes on Saturday’s 11-race program that begins at 
1 p.m. ET. The Woodford is the afternoon’s sixth race with a 3:38 p.m. post time.

Trained by Wesley Ward, Golden Pal is undefeated in three Keeneland starts: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G2) in 2020, Woodford last year and Shakertown (G2) this spring.

Golden Pal is the only Woodford winner to come back and win the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) in the same year with that victory giving him his first Grade 1 triumph. Four horses have won the Woodford in back-to-back years with the most recent being Bucchero in 2017-2018.

Irad Ortiz Jr. has the mount on Golden Pal and will break from post position four.

The field for the Woodford, with riders and weights from the rail out, is: County Final (Ricardo Santana Jr., 120 pounds), Bad Beat Brian (Chris Emigh, 120), All in Sync (Florent Geroux, 118), Golden Pal (Irad Ortiz Jr., 124), Gear Jockey (Luis Saez, 120), Oceanic (Julien Leparoux, 120), Artemus Citylimits (Tyler Gaffalione, 120), Charcoal (Rafael Bejarano, 120), Cadamosto (IRE) (Flavien Prat, 118).