Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. won on four his five mounts Friday on Ellis Park's eight-race card in Henderson, Ky., including with the promising 2-year-old colt Tiz the Bomb. The race he lost? Gus Gus, owned by trainer Ian Wilkes' wife, Tracey, and Hernandez's wife, Jamie. The two couples also bred the 2-year-old gelding.
But Gus Gus' second place in a $30,000 maiden-claiming race in his career debut was special in its own right. He's a son of Fort Larned, with whom Wilkes and Hernandez teamed to win the $6-million Breeders' Cup Classic in 2012 and two other Grade 1 races. In fact, Fort Larned gave Hernandez his first Grade 1 winner in Saratoga's Whitney Handicap, after which he was back riding at Ellis Park the next day.
“It was a good day,” Hernandez said of Friday's haul. “We rode five, and the first one was second. Which was pretty cool because it's a horse that Ian and I bred and we race. He was second today in the third race. And the rest of them, they all ran true to form. We got lucky and had a four-win day…. Third day of the meet and to get a four-win day, it's big.”
More on Gus Gus later. Here are the races Hernandez won:
// The fourth race as the Kenny McPeek-trained Tiz the Bomb blew up to a 14 1/2-length romp in a 2-year-old maiden race.
// The sixth aboard the 4-year-old filly Teenage Kicks, winner by three-quarters of a length in an off-the-turf allowance race for trainer Bernie Flint and owner Naveed Chowhan.
// The seventh by 2 3/4 lengths on Joseph Murphy's 4-year-old colt My Man Flintstone for trainer Brendan Walsh in another allowance race.
// The eighth in the $30,000 maiden-claiming race that served as the nightcap and which Island Boy smoked to a 10 3/4-length score for Wilkes and owner-breeder Anita Ebert.
Gus Gus closed from last of seven but was no threat as 9-5 favorite Bueno Bueno rolled to a 7 1/4-length romp. Off at 6-1 odds, Gus Gus finished three lengths in front of the next-closest horse.
Hernandez's streak started the next race, in which Tiz the Bomb led all the way at 3-5 odds in a mile maiden race taken off the turf. In his only other start, Tiz the Bomb finished seventh in a five-eighths of a mile dirt race at Churchill Downs. Undaunted, before the Ellis meet began, trainer Kenny McPeek said he had a really nice horse for the track's $125,000 Runhappy Juvenile Aug. 15 in Tiz the Bomb. Nothing that happened change that.
“He ran big,” Hernandez said after the victory. “We always thought he was going to run like that. The first time was a little short for him. When he got to go the mile today, he showed how good he is. I don't know what Kenny's going to do with him now, but it looks like he'll go forward from here.”
Said McPeek: “He was just a little clumsy in his first race. Nothing went right. He got off a little awkward, and he couldn't run them down. He just needed more ground. He'll definitely go in (the Juvenile), and we'll go from there.”
Tiz the Bomb is a poster boy for McPeek's use of mile maiden races over the Ellis Park turf, the trainer wanting the distance more than the surface and unconcerned if soggy grass moves them to the main track. Tiz the Bomb would seem suited to both surfaces, being a son of 2015 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hit It a Bomb, now part of Spendthrift Farm's stallion roster. His broodmare sire is two-time Breeders' Cup Classic winner Tiznow.
How Wilkes, Hernandez ended up in the breeding business
Here's how Hernandez found himself in the breeding business: “Ian called a few years ago and asked if we wanted to go in half on this mare with him,” he said. “We bred her to Fort Larned twice. We got the horse that ran today and we have a yearling over in Lexington.”
That mare, Social Amber, went 0 for 3 as a racehorse but is by the popular Claiborne Farm stallion War Front. Her owner at the time, Dennis Farkas, gave Social Amber to Wilkes, who as the trainer also has a free breeding right to Fort Larned.
“I gave half of the mare to Brian, and I had the breeding right,” Wilkes said. “So we got in at the right cost.”
Asked if their wives were “good pay” — racetrack parlance for owners who pay their training bills — Wilkes joked with a laugh, “Hmm, slow. They're tough. After the race, Trace wanted to know why Brian didn't move early enough.”
More seriously, he said, “He was very encouraging today to run second in his first start, because he's no five-furlong horse.”
Hernandez is now out of the breeding business. With Fort Larned moving from Kentucky to Ohio, Jamie Hernandez gave the mare to a friend in the Buckeye state.
The post Hernandez Bags Four Winners At Ellis Park appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
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