Colonial Downs’s 10-race Saturday card includes the $125,000 Jamestown Stakes for Virginia-bred or -sired two-year-olds and then a sequence of four consecutive Virginia restricted handicaps for older runners. 

Some notes on those handicaps:

The winner of the $150,000 Edward P. Evans at Colonial Downs earlier in the meet, Passion Play is entered in the $150,000 Bert Allen Stakes at Colonial Downs on Saturday. He’s an eight-year-old gelding that is passionate about racing at Colonial Downs.  

Passion Play has seven wins in 30 career starts but has five wins from nine starts at Colonial Downs. Mary Eppler’s trainee has won the Edward P. Evans three times and on Saturday looks to pull off the Evans-Allen double in the same year again. In 2021, the Virginia-bred owned by Reiley McDonald also captured the Evans-Allen double.

That’s an interesting contest, the Bert Allen, named for the father of trainer Ferris Allen. Other contenders include Wow Whata Summer, who was (approximately) a billion-to-one when he won the Grade 2 Penn Mile in 2022 but has just one win since; lightly raced five-year-old Evan Harlan; and Sky’s Not Falling for leading trainer hopeful Mike Trombetta.

Trainer Linda Rice sends Power Seeker to Colonial Downs in the Bert Allen shipping her five-year-old horse down from Saratoga for her first starter of the meet. Power Seeking is trying the turf for the first time in his career after winning by six open lengths on the dirt earlier this month at Saratoga. 

Owner and trainer Niall Saville sends out Next Episode this Saturday in the $150,000 Nellie Mae Cox Stakes looking to become the first three time winner of the meet. Saville’s filly won her first two races of the meet before finishing third in the three-peat attempt on August 17 won by Newstead Stable’s For Flying. Tyler Conner returns to the mount.

Trombetta appears in that contest, too, with last year’s Nellie Mae Cox (and Maryland Million Ladies) runner-up Naval Empire. The Empire Maker filly is winless in three tries this year.

Determined Kingdom kind of has to win the 5 ½-furlong Meadow Stable, doesn’t he? He has the best resume, carries the highest impost of 119 pounds, and arrives off a legitimate third-place finish in the Van Clief here. When he saw state-breds on July 20 here, he won at odds of 1-20.

Phil Schoenthal trains the five-year-old Animal Kingdom gelding, and Victor Carrasco will ride.

But it might not be quite that simple. Among other contenders, there’s the former Trombetta trainee Whenigettoheaven, now in the barn of Nolan Ramsey, grandson of owner Ken Ramsey. A $62,500 claim in March, this one arrives with two straight wins, including, last out, in the Maryland-restricted Ben’s Cat at Laurel Park. That gave Nolan Ramsey his first stakes win.

J. G. Torrealba is named to ride.

Speaking, as we were earlier, of Bert Allen, his son Ferris won’t be overly busy Saturday but will saddle interesting contender Chambeau in the 5 ½-furlong Camptown for fillies and mares. The seven-year-old Chambeau didn’t make the races until she was five, making her career bow for trainer T. J. Aguirre and winning the Tyson Gilpin by over three lengths in 2022 at Colonial.

She finished seventh in that year’s Camptown but bounced back to sweep the Gilpin (now the Gilpin/Petty) and the Camptown last year while trained by Aguirre’s father Tony. She’s winless in three tries this year under Allen’s tutelage and will have to find her “A” game to overcome a tough field that includes hard-hitting Hollywood Walk (for, yes, Trombetta), dominant Gilpin/Petty winner Mystic Seaport (4-for-6 on the turf), and ultra-speedy Bosserati.

Chambeau is 8-1 on the morning line and will have new pilot Tyler Conner in the irons as regular rider Horacio Karamanos lands on Hollywood Walk. Mystic Seaport is, at 5-2, the morning line favorite.

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