Juddmonte's multiple graded stakes winner Set Piece was tabbed as the 2-1 morning line choice by morning line odds maker Mike Battaglia in Sunday's 43rd running of the Grade 3, $300,000 River City at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
The River City is one of three stakes events on the program. Run at 1 1/8 miles on turf, the River City will go as the finale on the 10-race card at 5:35 p.m. (all times Eastern). First post is 1 p.m. The card also includes the $300,000 Bet On Sunshine (Listed) and $300,000 Dream Supreme (Listed).
Trained by Brad Cox, Set Piece would achieve millionaire status with a victory in the River City. The 6-year-old gelded son of Dansili (GB) has never won at the distance and last stretched out to 1 1/8 miles in the Arlington Million (G1) where he finished a disappointing fourth as the 2-1 favorite.
Set Piece has won 11 of 24 career starts and banked $919,573 in purse earnings. Most recently, Set Piece closed from 12 lengths off the early pace in the $1 million Turf Mile (G1) at Keenealnd but finished fourth by 1 ¾ lengths to Annapolis. Earlier this year, Set Piece won the $250,000 Dinner Party (G2) and $200,000 Baltimore/Washington International Turf Cup (G3). Jockey Florent Geroux will have the mount in the River City and break from post No. 11.
Here's the complete field from the rail out (with jockey, trainer and morning line odds): Hozier (Julien Leparoux, Rodolphe Brisset, 30-1); English Tavern (James Graham, Michelle Lovell, 20-1); Beatbox (Brian Hernandez Jr., Cherie DeVaux, 20-1); Cellist (Corey Lanerie, Rusty Arnold II, 6-1); In Love (BRZ) (Gerardo Corrales, Paulo Lobo, 7-2); Militarist (Junior Alvarado, Carlo Vaccarezza, 30-1); Pixelate (Vince Cheminaud, Mike Stidham, 10-1); Max K.O. (Ricardo Santana Jr., Saffie Joseph Jr., 8-1); Street Ready (Luis Saez, Ian Wilkes, 8-1); Accredit (Rafael Bejarano, Pavel Matejka, 15-1); Set Piece (GB) (Geroux, Cox, 2-1); and Field Pass (Tyler Gaffalione, Mike Maker, 10-1). Also Eligible: Starting Over (Adam Beschizza, Robert Falcone Jr., 30-1) and Rupp N Ready (Edgar Morales, Helen Pitts, 30-1).
The River City is scheduled to be contested in Lane 1 on the turf course.
Fans can watch and wager on all the action from Churchill Downs on www.twinspires.com, the official wagering provider of Churchill Downs Incorporated and the Kentucky Derby.
TALK OF THE NATION (c, 2, Quality Road–She's Not Here {MGSW, $450,453}, by Street Cry {Ire}) failed to meet his reserve on a final bid of $470,000 after breezing in :10.1 at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale earlier this spring. Given the 4-5 nod in this scratched-down field of just three, Talk of the Nation took his time getting into stride after bumping with Nieuwendyk (Nyquist) shortly after the break. Third of the trio, he kept outside in the clear up the backstretch run before bidding from the four path around the turn as the half went in :47.47. On the lead passing the quarter pole, Talk of the Nation wasted no time asserting himself down the lane, drawing away from his two rivals to win by a geared-down 4 1/2 lengths. Assertive Attitude (Violence) led home Nieuwendyk to be a narrow second. From the family of Horse of the Year Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) and MGISW Balance (Thunder Gulch), Talk of the Nation has a yearling half-sister, Flight or Fantasy (Uncle Mo), and a weanling half-brother by Improbable. She's Not Here was bred back to WinStar's stallion for the 2023 season. Sales History: $470,000 RNA 2yo '22 FTFMAR. Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $46,750. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.
O-Allen Stable, Inc.; B-Chc Inc. (KY); T-Claude R. McGaughey III.
Thanks to Equine Guelph's incredible racing industry education partners, TheHorsePortal.ca will host three racing-exclusive short courses in the winter of 2023 – free for AGCO licensees and Standardbred Canada members!
“We are thrilled to once again offer these valuable short courses on the hot topics of lameness prevention, respiratory health and gut health to the racing industry,” says Gayle Ecker, director of Equine Guelph. “We are also thrilled to welcome back our wonderful industry ambassadors Ruleen Lilley and Renée Kierans.”
Trainers, grooms and owners will reap the benefits of learning the latest in equine healthcare through free access to three online courses developed by Equine Guelph to address industry-identified healthcare priorities in racehorses.
As Industry Ambassadors, Lilley and Kierans will represent the Standardbred and Thoroughbred sectors, respectively, as peer helpers in all three courses. They will be online to assist course participants, ask practical questions to industry experts on behalf of their sector and encourage lively, robust online discussions between students from the different racing sectors.
Ruleen Lilley, is a partner of Mac Lilley Farms, which boasts over 50 years in the business of breeding and racing Standardbreds. “This life has shown us struggles and thrills, and I wouldn't have chosen any different path,” says Lilley. “What a great learning experience the online courses have been, Lilley says about the first offerings. We are never too old to learn something new. I look forward to being your Standardbred Ambassador again.”
Renée Kierans, Thoroughbred Ambassador, has been involved in the horse racing industry for close to 40 years. She has worn many caps such as exercise rider, pony rider, outrider, starting gate crew, groom school instructor, trainer and owner. She worked for 12 years as an on-air broadcaster and handicapper for Woodbine and Mohawk, covering both Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing. Kierans is excited for the second offerings on TheHorsePortal.ca and has this to say of her first experience, “The three online courses that I was involved in, as ambassador for the thoroughbreds, were all filled with valuable information that is “must have knowledge” if you're dealing with race horses.
For those lamenting that horses today don't run enough, meet Beverly Park.
If ever there was a horse that the Claiming Crown was meant to showcase it's the 5-year-old Beverly Park, who runs in the $100,000 Claiming Crown Ready's Rocket Express in Saturday's eighth race at Churchill Downs.
Blue collar? Check. Work horse? Check. Helping to fill America's racing cards? Check. Iron horse? Are you kidding me?
Beverly Park has raced 25 times in 2022, winning 12 with five seconds and three thirds. Those dozen victories are the most in North America, four more than the four horses in second at eight apiece. He has raced at 14 tracks this year alone. For his career, Beverly Park is 22-6-4 in 42 starts, earning $490,930.
“He's just a blue-collar horse. He's a tank,” said owner-trainer Norman L. Cash, who goes by his middle name of Lynn. “If you leave him in the stall, he's mad. He just wants to get out and go. He's the most healthy horse I've been around or seen. I think he won once on four days rest and a couple of times on five. Granted those were softer spots, but he puts it out there every time. With a couple of exceptions, he's always right there.
“He's just an amazing animal.”
The six-furlong Ready's Rocket Express is for horses that have run for a claiming price of $8,000 or cheaper at any time in their career. The Express is one of eight Claiming Crown races, which are at Churchill Downs for the first time. The series is a production of the National Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association (NHBPA) and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA), with Churchill Downs and the Kentucky HBPA the hosts.
Cash — who only began training in the spring of 2021 and campaigns his horses with wife Lola in the name of Built Wright Stables — claimed Beverly Park on Aug. 5, 2021, out of a “non-winners of three” lifetime race with a $12,500 claiming tag. The horse's win that day proved the second of eight straight and nine out of 10 for last season.
Trainer Norman L. Cash
Beverly Park clearly has thrived in Cash's care. Only once has the horse been worse than fourth, and that came at Turfway Park in his only race over a synthetic surface. He comes into the Claiming Crown nine days after winning a seven-furlong $5,000 starter-allowance race at Charles Town in West Virginia by 4 1/4 lengths in a field of eight. Nineteen days before that, he narrowly lost a $20,000 starter race at Keeneland, which came three weeks after he won just such a race at Churchill Downs.
Beverly Park has never competed in a stakes race, and that doesn't change Saturday with the Claiming Crown staged as big-money starter-allowance races rather than stakes. But Cash has stakes horses in his stable of about 50 based at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington and Maryland's Laurel Park. Double Crown recently won New York's $300,000, Grade 2 Kelso at 42-1 odds in his 12th start of the year. Sir Alfred James is a multiple stakes winner who was fourth in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes won by champion sprinter Jackie's Warrior on the Kentucky Derby card.
“If I could put the perfect on the perfect date for every horse I have, every race would probably be 11 or 12 days apart,” Cash said. “I just believe you can get 95 to 97 percent of what the horse has on 10 to 12 days rest. I just won a Grade 2 on seven days rest with Double Crown, the first graded stakes I'd won. … If I have to choose between nine and 19 days, I'd choose nine every time. Every horse, every time.”
Cash's other career is as a roofing contractor that goes into underserved regions following hail storms, a business he said is now run by his sons. The family was working in Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012 and on a whim they came to Churchill Downs and saw I'll Have Another's Derby victory.
“We'd never been on this side of the country,” Cash said. “We thought, 'Wow, we can just drive to the Kentucky Derby. How exciting.' Then it came out that I'll Have Another was bought at auction for $35,000. I said, 'You know, we've got 35 grand. Let's buy a racehorse! How fun would that be?'”
He and his wife owned a handful of horses for several years before Cash decided he wanted to train his own claiming operation. He prepared by working for Kellyn Gorder, who was training the Cashes' horses, before taking out a couple of loans and going it alone in the middle of the COVID outbreak.
Does he ever think that he could just be repairing roofs and not have to worry about a horse getting in a race or spiking a temperature or the races not going?
“I've made the statement before: the worst day at the track is better than any day on the roof,” Cash said with a laugh. “This racing horses just pulls you in.”
Beverly Park is not an automatic single in the Ready's Rocket Express, for those playing multi-race wagers. He's the tepid 7-2 favorite in a capacity field of 12 that includes 4-1 co-second choices Silver Moon Road, winner of five straight in Indiana and New Jersey shipper Powerfully Built, who earned a 102 Bris speed figure in his last start. Also in the race is Belterra Park-based Joyful Heart, an 11-time career winner who beat Beverly Park in July.
“I don't know if we'll win; I hope we do,” Cash said. “And I don't know that I deserve to win. But that horse deserves to be the Claiming Crown winner. He's a fan favorite and a blue-collar worker. He just goes to work every time.”
