Dance With Fate, a California shipper who has shown extremely good form over synthetic surfaces, won the final Polytrack edition of the $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday,
Coming in off a runner-up finish in the El Camino Real Derby over the Tapeta at Golden Gate Fields, he was starting outside California for the first time and earned 100 points, enough to get into the field for the May 3 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Trainer Peter Eurton said the Derby, run at 1 1/4 miles on the dirt at Churchill Downs, is an unknown for the Florida-bred son of Two Step Salsa .
"I don't know if we'll go to the Derby; I know he likes synthetic, I just don't know if he likes dirt," said Eurton.
Keeneland is replacing its Polytrack with dirt after the 2013 spring meeting with the aim of attracting top-level dirt horses en route to the Derby and Breeders' Cup.
Dance With Fate now has three wins and three seconds from eight starts, with two of his victories coming on synthetic tracks and one earned over the turf.
Last year, he was runner-up in the both the G1 Del Mar Futurity and G1 FrontRunner Stakes at Santa Anita.
In his biggest dirt test in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile he fizzled to eighth after getting slammed coming out of the gate.
In the Blue Grass, Dance With Fate had much better luck.
He bided his time under Corey Nakatani and reeled in the front-runner's to score by 1 3/4-lengths from Medal Count.
Trainer Dale Romans indicated he will start Medal Count in the Derby if the 40 points he earned with his runner-up finish gets him into the 20-horse field.
The attendance of more than 39,000 was the second-largest in track history, surpassed only by the 2012 Blue Grass Day attendance of 40,617.
Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado missed the Bluegrass meeting after he fractured neck vertebrae after he was knocked out in a training accident at Keeneland and expects to be out of action for at least a month.
He has a hairline fracture of the C-7 at the base of his neck.
In the same incident, jockey Jose Lezcano bruised his shoulder. The two riders were breezing horses for trainer Brian Lynch.
