Slay the Day Sets Stakes Record in Limestone Stakes Debut at Keeneland

Tobys Heart's 2021 Limestone Stakes record of 1:02.29 lasted five years. It took Slay the Day roughly 62 seconds to erase it.

Slay the Day completed the 5½ furlongs on firm turf in 1:01.99, besting the previous stakes record of 1:02.29 set by Tobys Heart in 2021. That three-tenth-of-a-second improvement was decisive in more ways than one: the filly she toppled in the process was Cy Fair, the reigning Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint champion. Sapphire Beach finished a half-length clear of third-place Cy Fair, who was making her first start since winning last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

The victory, in the Grade 3 FanDuel Limestone Stakes at Keeneland on April 10, was the first stakes start of Slay the Day's career. The 3-year-old Into Mischief filly, trained by Brian Lynch for Flying Dutchmen Breeding and Racing, improved her record to three wins from five starts and pushed career earnings toward $337,238. She returned $16.14 on a two-dollar win ticket.

Getting there was far from routine. John Velazquez drew post 11 in a nine-horse field, a position that would have tempted a more conservative rider to settle and save ground. Instead, Velazquez pushed Slay the Day three- to four-wide through the early going, keeping her close to pace-setter Cy Fair across the backstretch. As the field swung for home, Slay the Day surged to challenge and sustained her momentum through the lane, where Sapphire Beach, who had been saving ground on the rail the whole trip, came flying late. The Irish-bred filly closed hard but couldn't get there, losing by a neck at the wire.

"She was going awesome the whole way around. She broke really well," Velazquez said. "I was expecting a little more speed, that somebody would go. Down the lane when she responded, she responded very quickly. Very nice."

This was just Slay the Day's second start on turf, and she is now 2-for-2 on grass. Lynch credited the Gulfstream Park turf experiment as the turning point. "The way she ran the first time on the grass, she obviously found her surface," Lynch said. "She left there running and got herself in a good spot. When we saddled her, she never turned a hair. She took everything in her stride here. We're just so thrilled that she's doing what she's doing."

The Limestone's recent history amplifies the magnitude of what just happened at Keeneland. The 2025 edition showcased Shisospicy, who wired the field under Irad Ortiz Jr. and went on to win the Grade III Mamzelle Stakes at Churchill Downs and the Grade II Music City Stakes at Kentucky Downs before capping her season with a dominant gate-to-wire victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. A filly who breaks the Limestone record in dominant fashion, in just her second turf start, against a Breeders' Cup winner, carries a freight of expectation into the summer calendar.

For Flying Dutchmen and Lynch, the one-turn turf sprint circuit now opens wide. The Mamzelle at Churchill Downs, the Music City at Kentucky Downs, and ultimately a Breeders' Cup road are the logical steppingstones for a filly who just proved, on firm ground and from an impossible post, that she can beat the best in her division before anyone had even learned her name.