Grade 2 Phoenix Stakes is a "Win and You're In" for the Breeders' Cup Sprint

Special Reserve (Paradise Farms Corp. and David Staudacher) headlines a field of seven sprinters entered for Friday's 169th running of the $250,000 Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix Stakes (G2) going 6 furlongs on the main track at Keeneland Race Course.

Friday is opening day of Keeneland's 2021 Fall Meet, which marks the track's 85th anniversary.

Scheduled as the eighth race on Friday's 10-race program with a 5:10 p.m. ET post time, the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix is a Breeders' Cup Challenge race with the winner receiving a fees-paid berth into the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) to be run November 6 at Del Mar.

Trained by Mike Maker, Special Reserve has compiled a 6-4-2-0 record in 2021 and enters Friday's race off a runner-up effort in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt (G1) at Saratoga on July 31. In his lone Keeneland start, Special Reserve was second in this spring's Commonwealth (G3).

Joel Rosario, who was aboard in the Vanderbilt, has the mount Friday out of post position six.

Looming as the main threat to Special Reserve is Griffon Farms and trainer Michelle Lovell's Just Might.

Winner of his past four starts, all coming in stakes, Just Might enters Friday's race off dirt victories at Colonial Downs and most recently at Churchill Downs. Colby Hernandez has the mount from post four.

The field for the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix, with riders and weights from the inside, is: Quick Tempo (Sophie Doyle, 118), Mucho (Reylu Gutierrez, 120), Endorsed (Julien Leparoux, 120), Just Might (Hernandez, 120), Aloha West (Jose Ortiz, 120), Special Reserve (Rosario, 120), Sir Alfred James (Corey Lanerie, 120).

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