September, 2020 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Got Stormy Handles Soft Turf, Shorter Distance In Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint Stakes

One thing trainer Mark Casse has had on a wish list for his charge Got Stormy in 2020 was for the 5-year-old mare to finally get the foot-rattling ground she has done her best running over. So when rain began soaking the turf at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky., over the course of Saturday afternoon, turning the conditions to soft in the process, one could forgive the Hall of Fame conditioner if he started to get a twist of dread in his stomach heading into the Grade 3 Real Solution Ladies Sprint Stakes.

Class can overcome a lot of would-be setbacks and for Got Stormy, her superiority would not be dulled this day even if the ground beneath her was. The multiple Grade 1-winning daughter of Get Stormy exploded down the lane to take the $500,000 Ladies Sprint Stakes by 3 1/4 lengths, ending a five-race losing skid and earning her first victory of 2020.

Prior to the 6 1/2-furlong Ladies Sprint, the only time Got Stormy had raced at shorter than a mile was her debut as 2-year-old in a 7 1/2-furlong race, which at Gulfstream Park is staged around two turns. Since capturing the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes last December to close out a 2019 campaign that also saw her best males in the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap, the chestnut mare hadn't been able to find the form that made her an Eclipse Award finalist for champion turf female last season.

“For her to get a mile, she needs it extremely, extremely hard. And she hasn't gotten that once this year,” Casse said. “We always felt that way (that she'd sprint) but there's never been an opportunity. For $500,000, we figured this would be a good time to do it. I've always said she'd handle soft going; it just limits how far she can run.

“The bit of the give in the ground (today) was a little worrisome, but it kind of played to her favor.”

With her regular pilot Tyler Gaffalione in the irons on Saturday, Got Stormy indeed looked at home as the 9-5 favorite rated between horses in fourth through the opening quarter mile in :22.54 in the Ladies Sprint. After pacesetter Surrender Now took the field 12-horse field through a half mile in :46.27 and into the stretch, Got Stormy was angled to the outside around rivals by Gaffalione, striking the front near the eighth pole and continuing to draw clear en route to covering the distance in 1:15.41.

“The filly broke great today. We were worried about the soft ground, but she handled it beautifully,” Gaffalione said. “She felt like a winner every step and when I got her out she finished the job. She's got so much class and is a tremendous filly. Great job by Mark and his team having her ready.”

“She's hard not to love,” Casse added. “I've felt bad for her this year because she's gotten some bad 'rap,' that she isn't what she was. And it's not true. Like when she won the Fourstardave last year the track was so hard and so fast. And she just hasn't gotten that. That's what she likes. The softer it is, the shorter she needs to run.”

Winning Envelope ran on from well back to get second in the Ladies Sprint with Into Mystic third.

Owned by Gary Barber, Got Stormy improves her record to nine wins from 24 starts with $1,901,378 in earnings.

“I'll talk to Gary (owner Gary Barber) but we'll probably come back and run her 5 1/2 (furlongs) in the Breeders' Cup” (Turf Sprint at Keeneland),” Casse said “I think she'll like that 5 1/2. (Gaffalione) said he could have been on the lead, no problem. I know she cannot go a mile at Keeneland in the fall. We know that.”

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Kentucky Downs Moves Sunday Card, Handicapping Challenge To Tuesday; Saturday’s Card Sets Wagering Mark

Kentucky Downs announced that because of Saturday's rain and expectations of more inclement weather that Sunday's 11-race card is being moved to Tuesday, Sept. 15. The meet then will conclude with Wednesday's scheduled card.

“With the steady rain that we had from the fifth race on and the projected forecast for rain overnight and tomorrow, we felt it the prudent thing to do safety-wise for both horses and riders,” said Ted Nicholson, Kentucky Downs' senior vice president and general manager. “With the forecast being much more favorable for Tuesday and Wednesday, it was the right thing to do.”

In addition, the Kentucky Downs Turf Handicapping Challenge's first live-money tournament scheduled for Sunday now will be on Tuesday's card. With the postponement, all the contest wagers will be made on Kentucky Downs races, as Monmouth Park does not run on Tuesday. Wednesday's handicapping tournament will go on as scheduled that day.

Kentucky chief state steward Barbara Borden said that any scratches from Sunday's card will be reinstated for Tuesday, including those on the also-eligible list. Trainers are advised that if they don't want to run, their horses must be withdrawn by Monday's 9 a.m. Central scratch time.

Meanwhile, the weather didn't dampen bettors' enthusiasm for Kentucky Downs' Saturday card. The track smashed its record for single-day wagering on its races with $17,437,731 bet on the 11 races. The previous record was $11,321,492 on the 10-race card held on last year's corresponding Saturday.

“It's great that even with an inclement weather day that we were able to have everyone around the country enjoy our races,” Nicholson said. “We are extremely pleased to see so many big-time horses continue to run well here, including Grade 1 winners Arklow and Got Stormy and Grade 2 winners Imprimis and Regal Glory coming away with stakes victories today and many other top horses hitting the board. But these races have gotten very tough, and we're confident we'll see some horses who might have been outrun on this day come back and win marquee races.”

Betting on the first four days of the meet comes to $41,389,764. That's $7,430,607 more than four equivalent days last year, when handle totaled $33,959,157, then a record.

Top five days of handle at Kentucky Downs
$17,437,731 – Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020
$11,321,492 – Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019
$10,039,008 – Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018
$8,983,981 – Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020
$8,487,323 – Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017

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Imprimus Earns Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint Berth With Hard-Fought Victory At Kentucky Downs

One year after getting beat as the favorite in the Grade 3, $700,000 Runhappy Turf Sprint Stakes, Imprimis rewarded those who retained the faith in him on Saturday as the Broken Vow gelding got up by a neck over Front Run the Fed to capture the 2020 edition of the race at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky.

The six-furlong Turf Sprint offered the winner a fees-paid spot in the $1-million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (Grade 1) on Nov. 7 at Keeneland as part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series' “Win and You're In” program.

The trip to Kentucky Downs for Imprimis represented just the second start of the year for the 6-year-old and his first win since taking the 2019 Grade 2 Shakertown Stakes. Though the record shows the dark bay gelding coming in off a loss in the Grade 3 Troy Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 8, he actually crossed the wire first by 2 1/4 lengths that day but was disqualified for interference and placed third.

“None of us were happy about it. I'd say 90 percent of the people, because they're my friends or trying to make me feel better, they all thought we got a bad deal,” trainer Joe Orseno said. “But it is what it is. You can't take the win away from the horse. He ran his heart out off a 10-month layoff. Went up there and won that. We're going to get to our goal, that's the Breeders' Cup. He loves Keeneland. So we're pretty excited.”

That big run Imprimis put in at Saratoga was his first start since running sixth in the last year's Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, and it served a warning for the kind of form he would bring to Franklin, Ky.

Sent off as the 3-1 favorite in the 11-horse field, Imprimis rated in fifth in an outside path as Bombard covered the opening quarter mile in :22.39 but found himself shuffled back with a wall of horses in front of him as the field reached the top of the stretch.

With three-sixteenths of a mile to go, Imprimis began making his big on the far outside under jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. and ended up in a three-way battle to the wire that saw him surge past Front Run the Fed and third-place finisher Bombard.

“A year ago (when fourth as the favorite), it was his first race since Royal Ascot,” Orseno said. “He wasn't quite back to himself. We tried to rush him along for the Breeders' Cup. We probably made a couple of bad moves.

“I had him where I wanted him (this year),” Orseno added. “I did everything we could do as far as the training and everything he's doing, his weight. We were very happy with him coming here. I expected this effort. But this was a tough race. There were some quality horses in there. I mean, the Breeders' Cup won't be any tougher. We're very happy where we have him right now.”

Said Ortiz: “He ran big. I rode him before on the soft turf at Pimlico, and I knew he handled it pretty good. So I wasn't afraid. I rode him with confidence. They moved outside of me, and I didn't want to see that, but they moved so I said let me just wait because it was a little early. When I tipped him out, he responded really well. He was coming.”

When Imprimis hit the wire in 1:09.93 over a course rated soft, it capped a huge day for owner Mike Hall of Breeze Easy, LLC, who also won the $500,000 Bal a Bali Juvenile Turf Sprint Stakes with Outadore.

“It feels wonderful. What a wonderful horse,” Hall said of Imprimis. “We've had so much fun with him. Since the day we bought him, he's just been an awesome horse. Joe Orseno has done a great job keeping him going.”

Hall was just sorry that his Breeze Easy partner Sam Ross was home in Parkersburg, W.Va., and not at the track. “I know he's jumping up and down,” Hall said. “I love him like my dad, and if it wasn't for him, we probably wouldn't be here. He makes this whole game for us much more exciting than what I could do by myself.”

Totally Boss, winner of the Turf Sprint Stakes last year, finished seventh on Saturday.

“He didn't seem to like the track today,” said Florent Geroux, jockey for Totally Boss. “He was stumbling a lot and never got his footing right. He ran even, but hated the track from the beginning. He was never in a good spot.”

Bred in Florida by Craig Wheeler, Imprimis now boasts eight wins from 15 career starts with $759,948 in earnings.

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Blinkers, Soft Ground Help Arklow Turn Tables On Zulu Alpha In Kentucky Turf Cup

They have been two of the more durable members of the turf male ranks for the last five seasons and on Saturday at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky., the latest chapter in the rivalry between Grade 1 winner Arklow and Zulu Alpha geared up for yet another run – this time at the venue where each had previously enjoyed success.

Where Zulu Alpha had gotten the best of his rival in last year's edition of the Grade 3, $1-million Calumet Farm Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes, trading blows had been the name of the game for the two warriors in their nine meetings prior to Saturday. So after losing Kentucky Downs bragging rights with a second in 2019, Arklow fittingly turned the tables on his old foe when he captured the 1 1/2-mile Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes by 1 1/4 lengths over Red Knight, with Zulu Alpha a late-running third.

Trained by Brad Cox for Donegal Racing, Joseph Bulger, and Peter Coneway, Arklow previously annexed the Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes in 2018 and has been a stalwart in his division -– placing in the top three eight times since that triumph, including a runner-up effort in this race last year. Things haven't been as smooth for the 6-year-old son of Arch since winning the 2019 Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes, however, as he had lost his last five starts coming into Saturday's test.

Zulu Alpha, by contrast, had won three of four starts in 2020 including a victory in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational on January 25. That momentum would be blunted over the soft ground on Saturday though as Arklow — wearing blinkers for the first time in a race — got a perfect trip sitting in the first flight just off the leaders before making his winning bid down the lane under jockey Florent Geroux.

“He was pretty sharp coming into this race,” Cox said of Arklow. “It's easy to say it now, but we had a lot of confidence that he would move forward with the blinkers. He likes it down here and obviously when it started raining it gave us even more confidence. He definitely likes a little juice in the ground, and he responded well.

“Florent did a good job getting him involved. That has a lot to do with this horse, how he runs, his involvement early on in a race.”

While Arklow was rated fifth, then fourth, as Changi took the field through the opening half mile in :50.27, Zulu Alpha was well back and had just one foe beat in 10-horse field. Longshot Eons grabbed the lead heading down the hill but Arklow was perched three wide at that point, waiting for the signal from Geroux to do more.

“It was a great trip for him. He was closer to the lead than he's used too,” Geroux said. “First time with blinkers, at 6 years old, helped him and the ground also helped. From there I just nursed him around and he waited for my signal down the stretch. He was able to hold off those horses pretty easily.”

Arklow paid $13.60 as the third choice in the field of 10 older horses. He became only the third two-time winner of the stakes, joining back-to-back winners Rochester (2002-2003) and Da Big Hoss (2015-16).

“Donegal Racing is very appreciative of Mr. (Brad) Kelley and Calumet Farm for sponsoring this race,” said Donegal president Jerry Crawford. “Donegal has won it two of the last three years and finished second the third time. We're grateful for Kentucky Downs and for the Calumet folks. Obviously, Arklow loves it there. He loves going that far. I think the addition of blinkers made a huge difference. He was able to lay closer to the pace and nobody is going to get past him once he has the lead in the stretch. We're very excited.”

At the top the stretch, Arklow took command for himself and turned back a threat from eventual runner-up Red Knight. Beaten favorite Zulu Alpha could only get up for show money, a length behind Red Knight.

“Everything worked out. We had a nice clean trip,” said Tyler Gaffalione, jockey Zulu Alpha. “The only thing I would say is that maybe the ground was getting away from him down the stretch. He was really digging in, trying to go get that horse, but it was just breaking away from him. Might be a little soft out there for him. It was a great performance. He tried hard the whole way. He's all class and hopefully we'll rebound in the Breeders' Cup (Turf).”

The final time for the distance over a course rated soft was 2:28.66.

In addition to improving his record to seven wins from 29 starts with earnings of $2,466,116, Arklow continued a hot streak for Cox and Geroux as the two paired up to capture the Kentucky Oaks on September 4 with Shedaresthedevil at Churchill Downs after winning the Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes on the undercard with champion Monomoy Girl.

“Honestly I really trained on him pretty strong for this race, zeroed in on this race,” Cox said of Arklow. “He had a fantastic work a couple of weeks back at Churchill on the turf. He had a huge gallop out that day. He'd been touting himself a lot going into this.

“It's great. It's been a busy week and a half,” Cox added. “Just trying to build off it, get bigger and better horses all the time. Looking to pick off races like this is what it's all about.”

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