Gin Gin, Alpine Princess Headline Keeneland’s New Grade 2 Doubledogdare

Gin Gin was the horse everyone had to beat in Keeneland’s new $400,000 Grade 2 Baird Doubledogdare Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile test for fillies and mares 4 and older that went as Race 9 with a 5:16 p.m. Eastern post. The defending champion carried the biggest name and the strongest headline, but Alpine Princess brought the clearest threat, giving the spring dirt feature a sharp two-filly focus even in a field that also included Aye Candy, Eunomia and Early On.

Keeneland’s upgrade of the Doubledogdare from Grade 3 to Grade 2 in 2026 raised the stakes around a race already tied to one of the track’s better distaff traditions. Doubledogdare, Claiborne Farm’s standout, won the 1955 Alcibiades, the 1956 Ashland and the 1956 Spinster Stakes, and this renewal gave the race a little more cachet at the start of Keeneland’s spring stakes sequence. That mattered for the betting, because Gin Gin was not simply returning as last year’s winner. She was trying to repeat in a race history that has rarely allowed that kind of follow-up, with Jeano still the only double winner, in 1992 and 1994.

The wagering case for Gin Gin rested on both class and current form. She won the 2025 Doubledogdare as a 38-1 upset and earned $214,288, a result that launched her into a more serious class conversation and helped lift her career earnings to $942,796 entering Friday. The 5-year-old homebred daughter of Hightail had also shown she could handle Keeneland, winning the 2025 Juddmonte Spinster Stakes there, and Brendan Walsh had her back on the worktab in late February before she fired a bullet half-mile in :46 4/5 over the surface. Ellis Starr labeled her the preferred contender, and the old saying about class helping horses repeat carried real weight here.

Alpine Princess, however, was the filly most likely to make the favorite work. Trained by Brad Cox, she won the 2025 Falls City Stakes at Churchill Downs and came off a second in the 2026 Royal Delta Stakes at Gulfstream Park, giving her a graded resume that fit this level. She drew the rail with Irad Ortiz Jr., a post that could let her save ground and apply pressure if the pace was honest. That was the key question in the race: whether Gin Gin would get the measured trip that lets class tell, or whether Alpine Princess, or another runner, could force her into a harder early chase after the five-month layoff. History showed this race could flip fast, with Singing Heart stopping the clock in 1:02.49 in 1997 and Pool Land winning by 12 lengths in 2006 when the shape opened up.