Best of Ohio stakes to be contested on Saturday at Beulah Park
Familiar rivals trained by Tim Hamm and Miguel Feliciano will square off in the $75,000 Best of Ohio Endurance Stakes, the showcase event on a card featuring five stakes races for Ohio-breds at Beulah Park on Saturday.
Hamm will saddle stakes winner Ready for Roses in the Endurance Stakes, a 1 1/4-mile race for three-year-olds and older. Feliciano will counter with multiple stakes winner Forest Picnic, who will face Ready for Roses for the third straight race.
Ready for Roses, a More Than Ready gelding, earned his first stakes victory in his previous start with a 5 1/4-length win in the Governor's Buckeye Cup Stakes on September 5.
Forest Picnic finished seventh in the Buckeye Cup Stakes but outran Ready for Roses by two lengths in the George Lewis Memorial Stakes on July 29.
Ready for Roses finished second in the Cleveland Gold Cup on July 2.
Besides the Endurance Stakes, the races on Saturday's card include the $60,000 John W. Galbreath Stakes and the $60,000 Juvenile Stakes, 1 1/16-mile races for two-year-olds. Two $50,000 races—the 1 1/8-mile Distaff Stakes for fillies and mares and the six-furlong Sprint Handicap for three-year-olds and older—will also be run.