One of the leading players early this year on the road to the Kentucky Derby, Flying Dutchmen’s Owen Almighty returns to Keeneland for Saturday’s 17th running of the $350,000 Perryville (G3) for 3-year-olds going 7 furlongs on the main track.

“He will come over Friday (from Churchill Downs) and then school in the Paddock,” trainer Brian Lynch said of Owen Almighty, whose lone Keeneland start was a sixth-place finish in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G1) in April.

Following the Toyota Blue Grass, Owen Almighty outran his 40-1 odds in the Kentucky Derby (G1) Presented by Woodford Reserve by leading the 19-horse field into the stretch before finishing fifth behind Sovereignty.

Given time off after the Derby, Owen Almighty resurfaced at Charles Town on Aug. 22 for the 7-furlong Robert Hilton Memorial (L). He finished last of eight after being eased as the favorite.

“I don’t know what happened,” Lynch said. “It is a modern mystery. They ought to put it on ‘Dateline’.”

Owen Almighty has had five works at Churchill Downs since the Charles Town race “and he has been training well and doing well,” Lynch said. “This race was the plan.”

The Perryville drew some top-flight talent, including graded stakes winners Barnes and Gaming for trainer Bob Baffert and Captain Cook, who just missed by a nose in his most recent start in the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial (G1) at Saratoga for trainer Todd Pletcher.