Trainer Bentley Combs may be saving the best for last. Again.
Combs' small claiming operation has produced the winner of the Trail's End, traditionally the final race of the Oaklawn meeting, the last two years and he may have the 2023 favorite in Hellorhighwater, who held off Tiger Moon by 1 ¾ lengths to win a 1 3/16-mile starter-allowance prep March 31.
Hellorhighwater and Tiger Moon are both owned by Ten Strike Racing (founding partners Marshall Gramm and Arkansas native Clay Sanders), which also campaigned 2021 and 2022 Trail's End winner Original Intent with Combs.
“Lindsay's horse was the one that gave me the scare,” Combs said, referring to Tiger Moon's trainer, Lindsay Schultz. “Turning for home, I thought he moved a little early and then we kept the margin about the same. I said, 'We're OK.' Lindsay's horse is the one that scared me, so it's kind of interesting that Marshall's got two horses that are (pointing for the Trail's End). We'll see.”
A victory in the Trail's End would make Combs, 35, just the second trainer to win three consecutive runnings of the 1 ¾-mile starter-allowance marathon. David Vance won the first three editions (1972, 1973 and 1974) and has a record seven Trail's End victories overall.
Maybe no trainer at the 2022-2023 Oaklawn meeting has done more with less than Combs, who has an eye-catching 39 percent strike rate (7 of 18) despite having only seven stalls. Hellorhighwater, a 7-year-old Ghostzapper gelding Combs claimed for $10,000 Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs, is among five three-time winners at the meeting. All three victories have been around two turns in starter-allowance company. Combs, with 13 fewer starts, has already more than doubled his victory total from the 2021-2022 Oaklawn meeting, his first season in Hot Springs.
“Right now, we have four horses,” Combs said Tuesday morning. “We have seven stalls for the meet and consistently had about five horses. Kind of a revolving door. That's what you need for this. You look down the shedrow and see four horses and go, 'Oh, My God, we're about ready to go out of business.' Frankly, that is the feeling we get every two months with our size of stable. But here you have to have those owners and last year we didn't come in with as many owners like that. But this year we've come in with owners that as soon as they get one claimed, it's, 'Let's go find another one and put it in the right spot.' That's what you need for this.”
A former assistant under trainer Dallas Stewart, Combs recorded his first career victory in the fall of 2017. Combs was raised in the heart of Thoroughbred country, Lexington, Ky., but he took a circuitous route to the winner's circle.
After graduating high school in 2006, Combs enrolled in the University of Louisville's Equine Industry Program. Combs' classmates at Louisville included Schultz, another future trainer, Jason Barkley; Liz Crow, now a noted bloodstock agent and Ten Strike's racing manager; and Gary Palmisano Jr., who was named Churchill Downs Incorporated's executive director of racing last fall. Combs graduated from Louisville in 2010 and took a job with locally based health insurance giant Humana.
“Very boring cubicle work,” Combs said. “I wasn't very happy with it, so I said I was going to shoot for my MBA. Wound up going go to Ole Miss. Kind of wanted to get out of Louisville for a little bit and I had a buddy, Jim Hanauer, who was an assistant athletic director down there and he was like, 'Why don't you come live with me and do the MBA thing down there?' Gave it a shot and it was a lot of fun.”
Combs received his Master of Business Administration degree in 2012 and then returned to Lexington to work as a BETologist at Keeneland, helping fans handicap races, understand betting, read Daily Racing Form, etc. He also had a similar role at Churchill Downs.
“I'll be completely honest,” Combs said. “I was looking for a resume booster, as far as getting a frontside job. So, I talked to Palmisano. He said, 'Why don't you go hot walk for Dallas Stewart?' I wound up hot walking for Dallas in the mornings and then going over and working on the front side. I guess that was 2013. It was kind of an interesting deal because Dallas didn't have many horses at the time because I got the opportunity to climb the ranks real fast, from hot walker to, 'We need a groom. Get in there.' After grooming for probably a year, kind of needed like a foreman kind of gig. Then, I gradually moved up to an assistant and off we go.”
Combs, as a traveling assistant for Stewart, recorded his first victory Nov. 2, 2017, at Churchill Downs, but considers early 2018 the actual start of his training career. Combs, then based at Fair Grounds, was 2 for 2 at the 2021 Oaklawn meeting and wintered in Hot Springs for the first time in 2021-2022, winning three races. Combs said Gramm, fond of giving Louisville EIP graduates a career push, steered him to Oaklawn.
“That was Marshall kind of wanting to make a change,” Combs said. “Plus, Marshall made the comment: 'You can meet more people and pick up owners and stuff like that coming to Oaklawn,' which is true because, honestly, I've picked up more owners coming to Oaklawn than I ever did at the Fair Grounds. I don't know what it is. That's just the way Oaklawn is. It seems to be that way so far for us.”
In addition to Hellorhighwater, Combs has had two other first-off-the-claim winners this season at Oaklawn – Dr. Forman (won for a $10,000 tag) Dec. 10 and Wobberjod ($8,000) March 4. Other clients for Combs include Clyde Mann and Quien Sabe Racing Stable of former trainer Ellis Naifeh.
“We've gotten very lucky this year,” Combs said. “Again, it goes back to the owners. Last year, I want to say we were kind of fighting city hall a little bit, in the sense of new place, new condition book, what's going to go, what's not going to go, that kind of thing. This year, we've got a better handle on that and we've got owners that aren't afraid to put one in and aren't afraid to get another one.”
Combs, who has 51 career victories, will be based in Kentucky later this spring and summer. Combs said he would eventually like to have a stable of 40 or 50 horses.
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