Lake Lucerne seeks first stakes score in G3 Athenia

Godolphin homebred Lake Lucerne will look to secure her first career stakes win in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Athenia, a nine-furlong inner turf test for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up at Belmont Park.

The Athenia is slated as Race 10 on Saturday’s 11-race card, which also features the Grade 2, $300,000 Kelso Handicap in Race 4, a one-turn mile for 3-year-olds and up headlined by Life Is Good.

Lake Lucerne, a 4-year-old Dubawi bay, is out of the multiple Grade 1-winning Awesome Again mare Round Pond. She enters from a narrow nose score in a 1 1/16-mile optional-claiming event on September 1 at the Spa.

Trained by Brendan Walsh, Lake Lucerne launched her career in England with trainer John Gosden which included a maiden score in March 2020 at Chelmsford.

Lake Lucerne closed to finish fourth in her North American debut in February at Gulfstream Park and followed with a 3 1/4-length allowance score in May traveling 1 1/16-miles on the Churchill Downs turf.

“She’s a lovely filly. Ever since she’s come to us she hasn’t done too much wrong,” Walsh said. “I thought she ran great at Saratoga and there’s still some improvement in her as there is with a lot of the Dubawis as they get a little older. She’s got to improve a little to figure tomorrow, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she’s there or thereabouts.”

Walsh has tasked Jose Lezcano with engineering a winning trip from the inside post in a five-horse field led by the Chad Brown-trained duo of Pocket Square and Miss Teheran.