Defending Champion War Like Goddess Tops Field of Seven for Closing-Day Bewitch

\George Krikorian’s War Like Goddess, a finalist for the Eclipse Award as North America’s champion turf female of 2021, headlines a field of seven fillies and mares entered Sunday for Friday’s 60^th running of the $300,000 Bewitch (G3) going 1½ miles on the grass. 

The Bewitch serves as the closing-day feature for the 15-day Spring Meet and will go as the eighth race on the 10-race program with a 4:07 p.m. ET post time. First post Friday is 12:30 p.m. 

Trained by Bill Mott, War Like Goddess will seek to become the first horse to win the Bewitch in consecutive years. Her Bewitch victory last year was the second in a string of four consecutive graded stakes triumphs during a campaign that concluded with a narrow third-place defeat as the favorite in the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1) at Del Mar. 

Joel Rosario will be aboard War Like Goddess in her 2022 debut and will leave from post position four. 

Hunter Valley Farm, Debra O’Connor and Marc Detampel’s Family Way looms as the major threat to War Like Goddess. 

Trained by Brendan Walsh, Family Way won the Orchid (G3) over the Bewitch distance April 2 at Gulfstream Park with Tyler Gaffalione aboard. Gaffalione retains the mount and will break from post three. 

The field for the Bewitch, with riders and weights from the inside, is: Core Values (Rafael Bejarano, 118 pounds), La Lune (GB) (Adam Beschizza, 118), Family Way (Gaffalione, 120), War Like Goddess (Rosario, 118), Stand Tall(Florent Geroux, 118), Luck Money (Irad Ortiz Jr., 118) and Breeze Rider (E.T. Baird, 118).