Alpyland and Immortalised set for American Derby rematch

Alpyland or Immortalised? Saturday’s 111th American Derby at Churchill Downs gives that Penn Mile question a second answer, and the rematch is sharper because the pair meets again in the $275,000 turf stakes after Alpyland beat Immortalised by four lengths last time out. The race is Card Race 8 of 12, with a 4:25 p.m. ET post, and it sits on a Stephen Foster Day program that packs seven stakes and Gallop for Good, Churchill Downs’ online fundraising push for Thoroughbred aftercare.

The setup matters as much as the names. The American Derby will be run at 1 1/16 miles on turf, a trip that can reward a horse with position early and a strong final turn of foot late. The day’s biggest draw is still the $2 million Stephen Foster, scheduled as Race 11 at 6:03 p.m. ET, but the Derby has its own appeal as a direct read on the 3-year-old turf division.

Alpyland brings the best recent form in the field. D.J. Stable LLC’s bay gelding by Vekoma out of Il Brigante, by Kela, won the Penn Mile in 1:34.17 on firm turf and paid $6.20 to win for trainer Mark Casse and jockey Javier Castellano. That came after earlier stakes victories in the Columbia Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and the Dania Beach Stakes at Gulfstream Park, while his only blemish came when he finished fourth in the Grade 1 American Turf on Kentucky Derby Day. In the Penn Mile, which drew 44 nominations and was run as a $400,000 Grade 3 with 122 pounds assigned to the topweights, Honey Dutch finished third behind Alpyland and Immortalised.

Immortalised has enough of a résumé to make the rematch dangerous. The Brendan Walsh trainee is a 3-year-old colt by Romanised out of Notte D’Oro by Montjeu, owned by Feld Family Racing and Starry Night Racing, and his Equibase profile shows five wins, three seconds and one third from nine starts with career earnings of about $237,770. He already won the Cutler Bay earlier this season, and the extra sixteenth of a mile in the American Derby gives him a chance to turn a Penn Mile defeat into a more even test if the pace is steadier and the finish is more about stamina than raw acceleration.

Bust Out adds another stakes horse to the mix, and Thousandsticks, Fulmine, Prepped, Serac, Comport and Brave Force complete a compact nine-horse field. The race has moved through several Chicago-area homes over the years, from Arlington Park to Washington Park and Hawthorne, before landing at Churchill Downs, where the result should tell whether Alpyland confirmed the Penn Mile order or Immortalised found the conditions to reverse it.