Grade 1 Winner Fionn Headlines Full Field for Oct. 18 Rood & Riddle Dowager at Keeneland

Fionn, with Flavien Prat up, edges Candy Quest to win the $2 million Blackwood Dueling Grounds Oaks (G3). (Coady Media)

Keeneland Press Release

George Messina and Michael Lee’s Fionn, a Grade 1 winner and earner of more than $2 million, leads a field of 12 entered Sunday for the 35^th running of the $350,000 Rood & Riddle Dowager (G3) to be run Oct. 18 at Keeneland. 

Trained by Brad Cox, Fionn won the Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1) at Saratoga and four other stakes during her 3-year-old campaign in 2025. Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride the daughter of Twirling Candy in the Rood & Riddle Dowager going 1 1/2 miles on the turf. The Rood & Riddle Dowager goes as the seventh on the nine-race card.

The Rood & Riddle Dowager field also features Speed Shopper, winner of the Bewitch (G3) Presented by Keeneland Sales going the same distance during Keeneland’s 2026 Spring Meet; and Golden Sunshine, runner-up in the Bewitch (G3) Presented by Keeneland Sales and the Global Tote Kentucky Downs Ladies Marathon Invitational (G3) last time out.

The field for the Rood & Riddle Dowager, with trainers, jockeys and weights from the rail out, are: 

Sunday, Oct. 18 — Race 8, 4:44 p.m. — $350,000 Rood & Riddle Dowager (G3), 3-year-olds and up, fillies and mares, 1½ miles (turf):