Week 3 of the Keeneland Spring Meet runs Wednesday through Saturday with no racing on Easter Sunday. But the Good Friday card includes a strong edition of the Grade 3 $350,000 Doubledogdare Stakes – named for the 1955 Alcibiades and 1956 Spinster Stakes winner. Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff alumnae are among the cast that includes an Eclipse Award winner as well.

Let’s meet the contenders for the Doubledogdare (Race 11):

#1-JUST F Y I: The 2023 Champion 2-Year-Old Filly makes the second start of her 4-year-old season and welcomes jockey Junior Alvarado back from a recent shoulder injury. The daughter of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify was runner-up in last year’s Grade 1 Ashland over this track prior to her same result in the Kentucky Oaks. She fired a bullet workout Saturday at Payson Park before trainer Bill Mott sent her north.

#2-GIN GIN: The Brendan Walsh barn has been firing strong to start the Keeneland Spring Meet and looks to continue its ways with this recent transfer from Brad Cox. Gin Gin won Aqueduct’s Busanda last year before being outrun 12th in the Kentucky Oaks. Her lone start since was a disappointing fifth of six in a Fair Grounds allowance in January in her final start for Cox. Jose Ortiz, who won this race in 2019, rides for the first time.

#3-NEON ICON: A Keeneland maiden and allowance winner during her two Spring and Fall appearances last year, this Arrogate filly returns to her favorite surface so far. Rusty Arnold gets Luis Saez back aboard following a disappointing mid-February effort while wintering in Florda. She’s 5: 0-0-0 in stakes and 3: 3-0-0 when the black type has not been involved.

#4-DREAMING OF MO: Turf and synthetic specialist has alternated wins and losses in her last 4 starts. Trainer Dale Romans puts Corey Lanerie back aboard and he notably rode her to victory in her only prior dirt start, a Churchill off-the-turf allowance last October. Uncle Mo mare exits a third-place effort in Turfway’s Wintergreen Stakes.

#5-TARIFA: Last year’s Rachel Alexandra, Fair Grounds Oaks and Mother Goose winner had a productive sophomore season that saw her earn more than $800,000. She wintered at Payson Park in Florida, but ventured to Santa Anita for the Grade 1 Beholder Mile in her only start this year, a third-place finish. She’s now Grade 1-placed at ages 3 and 4 for trainer Brad Cox, who turns the reins over to Florent Geroux. That duo won this race in 2021 with Bonny South.

#6-CANDIED: Trainer Todd Pletcher’s 5 victories in the Doubledogdare are a stakes record, most recently with Malathaat in 2022. Candied has a strong local history, winning the 2023 Grade 1 Alcibiades and finishing third last fall at age 3 in the Grade 1 Spinster. This will be her first start since a third-place run in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar. Irad Ortiz Jr. rode her for the first time in the Distaff and returns to the saddle.

#7-OCCULT: Chad Brown and Flavien Prat eye back-to-back wins in this race when they team with Occult. Last year it was Raging Sea, who not only provided victory, but gave Prat two in a row after he guided Bill Mott’s Frost Point the year prior. A Prat three-peat would be a first by any rider in this race, which inaugurated in 1992. Occult was a 13-1 runner-up in October’s Grade 1 Spinster in her only local attempt and followed that with another second at Aqueduct in December’s Grade 3 Go For Wand. This will be the first start of the year for the Into Mischief 5-year-old.