Faithful Departed sets stakes record in Regret Stakes win

Faithful Departed turned a tight trip into a defining performance at Churchill Downs, splitting rivals at the top of the stretch and powering away to win the 57th Regret Stakes by 2 1/4 lengths in stakes-record time.

The Grant T. Forster trainee covered 1 1/8 miles on firm turf in 1:46.23, knocking Fionn’s 2025 mark of 1:47.29 off the books and paying $10.94 to win. Jose L. Ortiz guided the 3-year-old filly through the key opening when it appeared in the lane, and once she found daylight she accelerated sharply and left the field chasing. The $275,000 Grade 3 went off May 30, 2026 at Churchill Downs, with seven runners starting after a pair of scratches.

That burst through the seam was the difference. Surprise Ending set the pace through sensible fractions, while Faithful Departed tracked along the inside and waited for room before tipping out to engage the leader. The move was not a desperate lunge through traffic so much as a clean, decisive turn of foot, and it came against a field that included Storm’s Wake and Tam Tam, making the record more than a byproduct of an uncontested trip.

The win was Faithful Departed’s second straight after a Churchill Downs allowance victory on April 26, and it changed her profile in one afternoon. She is now a graded stakes winner with career earnings of $286,189, a useful marker for a filly whose resume had shown promise without fully cashing in. She is by Yoshida out of Speed Seeker, by Heatseeker (IRE), and was bred in Kentucky by Robert K. Johnson. Her owners are Frank Ferrogine, Richard Rendina, Nick Coniglio and Greywood Farms LLC.

That pedigree and patience matter now because the Regret suggested a filly still moving upward. Daily Racing Form noted that Faithful Departed had run into trouble in several of her six starts before Saturday, including two stakes tries at Fair Grounds, which makes this breakthrough feel less like a one-off and more like a horse learning to put it all together. If the nine-furlong turf distance is indeed her best game, the Regret may be remembered as the race that put her on a bigger turf stage.