From ‘Collector’s Item’ to Derby Trail Kingpin

The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton

Five months ago, when Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) caught bettors napping on the final Saturday of the Saratoga season by unleashing a 6 1/2-length, front-running smackdown at 13-1 odds in his first career start, trainer Bryan Lynch told TDN he knew he had a “collector's item” on his hands.

Although a shimmering debut didn't hurt, the significance of Lynch's appraisal was pegged to the colt being one of only three named foals from the abbreviated final crop of prolific sire Giant's Causeway.

Now, after a grace-under-pressure performance in the Feb. 12 GIII Sam F. Davis S. at Tampa Bay Downs that launched Classic Causeway into the elite-level tier of GI Kentucky Derby contenders, that assessment needs to be recalculated with the colt's sky's-the-limit potential carrying more weight in the equation.

The Sam Davis has never produced a Derby winner. Of late it's even gained a reputation as a “trap” race known for derailing some pretty decent Derby contenders. Going into this year's running, the last four favorites (and five of the last six) had lost the Davis. In fact, for one of them, the Davis was part of a dizzying 10-loss tailspin before an improbable mid-career turnaround. That would be the 2019 off-the-board chalk Knicks Go (Paynter), who last Thursday–three years and one day after his lackluster Davis defeat–got crowned as 2021's Horse of the Year.

The burden of favoritism had been too much to bear for Classic Causeway in his second and third lifetime starts, but each of those losing efforts left enough of a positive impression that the homebred for Kentucky West Racing (Patrick O'Keefe) and Clarke Cooper was capable of better things in his sophomore season.

In the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity S. Oct. 9, Classic Causeway ambitiously forged to the front from post 13 over Keeneland's short-stretch configuration for 1 1/16 miles when facing winners and attempting two turns for the first time. He lasted for third behind well-meant victor Rattle N Roll (Connect).

After Lynch schooled Classic Causeway to relax while still remaining a pace presence, the colt broke running from post one in the Nov. 27 GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. and showed he was capable of conceding the lead. Responding effectively in stalk mode, he tipped out to the three path on the far turn and was on the move with 'TDN Rising Star' and eventual winner Smile Happy (Runhappy) at the head of the lane. Classic Causeway couldn't match strides with a very impressive undefeated colt at Churchill Downs that day, but he gave Smile Happy a run for his money until the eighth pole and was hardly disgraced in defeat.

Off those efforts, a brief break, and a series of breezes up to seven furlongs at Palm Meadows, Classic Causeway was bet down to favoritism for the Sam Davis (his price actually drifted up twice during the running of the race, from 6-5 to 3-2 before closing at 8-5, which is something you rarely see happen to a front-running fave in a $600,000+ win pool). He flashed out of the gate like a pro, then was immediately confronted by a keyed-up long shot from the outermost post. Jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. didn't use Classic Causeway overly hard to maintain the lead, but he didn't back away from the fight, either, allowing his colt to spar spiritedly at the head of a closely bunched pack of pursuers.

Classic Causeway ripped through the first quarter of the 1 1/16-mile race in a sprint-like :22.66, then toned down the middle two fractions to a more sensible :24.01 and :24.84, briefly losing the lead for a stride or two at the half-mile chart call. Still confidently handled at the head of the homestretch, he spun out to the three path, with three legitimate win threats hot on his heels.

One right-handed crack of the crop was enough to elicit an energetic spurt out of Classic Causeway three-sixteenths out, and when the colt drifted out to the five path while still in control, Ortiz gave him several more right-handed reminders upon cresting the furlong grounds, which had the effect of producing a “Wow!” gear that punctuated a visually impressive burst to the wire. The winning margin was 3 3/4 geared-down lengths in 1:42.80, good for an 88 Beyer Speed Figure.

Classic Causeway's fourth quarter split was :25.31. Of particular note was his in-the-clear final sixteenth in :5.98, the only sub-six-seconds clocking among this season's Derby preps at 1 1/16 miles from the Breeders' Cup onward.

“The [early] fractions had me a little bit worried,” Lynch said. “But his body language, the way his ears were twitching down the backside, gave me the feeling [Ortiz] had plenty of horse,” Lynch said post-race.

Lynch said Sunday morning that Classic Causeway is likely to return to Tampa in four weeks for the GII Tampa Bay Derby. “He's doing great,” the trainer said from his Palm Meadows stable. “He never left an oat and looks happy and spunky.”

Only Phantom Jet (1987), Speedy Cure (1991), Marco Bay (1993), Thundering Storm (1996), Burning Roma (2001) and Destin (2016) have accomplished the Sam Davis-Tampa Derby double.

Classic Causeway's win underscores the Kentucky Jockey Club as the key juvenile race among the preps for the '22 Derby. Two other colts from that race also scored in stakes in their next starts: Third-placer White Abarrio (Race Day) won the GIII Holy Bull S. at Gulfstream Feb. 5; sixth-place finisher Call Me Midnight (Midnight Lute) upset the GIII Lecomte S. at the Fair Grounds Jan. 22.

Smile Happy, the Kentucky Jockey Club S. winner, is currently rated No. 1 on the latest TDN Derby Top 12. He'll be in action this coming Saturday in an absolutely loaded edition of the GII Risen Star S. at the Fair Grounds. Three other Top 12 horses are entered, and Smile Happy will almost certainly have to win—and win emphatically–to keep from losing his top-of-the-totem-pole spot to Classic Causeway.

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Classic Causeway All the Way in Sam F. Davis

Classic Causeway (c, 3, Giant's Causeway–Private World, by Thunder Gulch), a good second when last seen in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. Nov. 27, ran to the money as the 8-5 favorite in Saturday's GIII Sam F. Davis S. at Tampa.

He shot out to the front from his inside draw and was hounded on the lead through fractions of :22.66 and :46.67. Still traveling nicely despite continued pressure rounding the far turn, he began to shake clear as they spun for home and took care of business from there to score by four good-looking lengths. Shipsational (Midshipman) was second; Volcanic (Violence) was third.

The final time for 1 1/16 miles was 1:42.80.

Saturday, Gulfstream
SAM F. DAVIS S.-GIII, $200,000, Tampa Bay Downs, 2-12, 3yo, 1 1/16m, 1:42.80, ft.
1–CLASSIC CAUSEWAY, 118, c, 3, by Giant's Causeway
               1st Dam: Private World (MSW, $166,058), by Thunder Gulch
               2nd Dam: Rita Rucker, by Dmitri
               3rd Dam: Darlease, by Temperence Hill
1ST BLACK TYPE WIN, 1ST GRADED STAKES WIN.
O-Kentucky West Racing LLC & Clarke M. Cooper;
B-Kentucky West Racing LLC & Clarke M. Cooper Family
Living Trust (KY); T-Brian A. Lynch; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr. $120,000.
Lifetime Record: GISP, 4-2-1-1, $301,100. Werk Nick Rating:
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Shipsational, 122, c, 3, Midshipman–Regal Approach, by
Thunder Gulch. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($27,000 Wlg '19
KEENOV; $210,000 2yo '21 OBSMAR). O-Iris Smith Stable,
LLC; B-Bertram R. Firestone (NY); T-Edward R. Barker.
$40,000.
3–Volcanic, 118, c, 3, Violence–Pulpit Angel, by Pulpit.
1ST BLACK TYPE, 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($230,000 Ylg
'20 KEESEP). O-Breeze Easy, LLC; B-Don Alberto Corporation
(KY); T-Mark E. Casse. $20,000.
Margins: 3 3/4, 1, 1 3/4. Odds: 1.60, 7.80, 8.80.
Also Ran: Strike Hard, Golden Glider, God of Love, Little Vic, Kitten Mischief, Mr Rum Runner, Make It Big, Unpredictable Bay, Trademark. Scratched: Howling Time.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs, or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Classic Encounter in Sam F. Davis

A promising group looking to punch their tickets to this season's Triple Crown in Saturday's 1 1/16-mile GIII Sam F. Davis S., awarding 'Road to the Kentucky Derby' points to the first four finishers (10-14-2-1). Looking to return to the winner's circle is Kentucky West Racing and Clarke M. Cooper's Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), trained by Brian Lynch. An impressive 6 1/2-length winner ahead of next-out scorer Trafalgar (Lord Nelson) in his career debut going seven furlongs at Saratoga Sept. 4, the chestnut came home third in Keeneland's GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity Oct. 9 before playing the bridesmaid to undefeated Smile Happy (Runhappy) in Churchill's GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. Nov. 27. On that occasion, he finished ahead of third-place finisher White Abarrio (Race Day), who returned to annex his seasonal bow in the Feb. 5 GIII Holy Bull S. at Gulfstream. Irad Ortiz Jr. rides Classic Causeway for the first time Saturday.

“I'd like to see him get his first graded-stakes victory and keep picking up Derby points,” said Lynch. “His workouts have been solid, and everything about them suggests he should run well.”

He added, “I feel that if he runs his race, he will certainly fit with these horses. He has a high cruising speed and he has gotten much bigger and stronger as a 3-year-old. He has the tactical speed to not be very far from the engine room, and hopefully, he will be first to the wire.”

Red Oak Stable's Make It Big (Neolithic) attempts to collect his first win at the graded level following a trio of wins, including Gulfstream's Juvenile Sprint S. in October before a narrow score in Remington's Springboard Mile S. Dec. 17.

“He got in between horses and had to rate a bit, and then he got hooked late and had to out-battle him to the wire. It was a very professional performance,” said Saffie Joseph Jr. of the colt's latest win. “This horse has a good mind, and he has found a way to win each time. He probably needs to improve to win Saturday, but he has improved in each race, so hopefully he will follow suit.”

Iris Smith Stable's Shipsational (Midshipman) ventures south following a trio of victories facing fellow New York breds. A debut winner at Saratoga last summer, he was fourth in that venue's state-bred Funny Cide S. but bounced back to win his next two, including the one-mile Sleep Hollow S. at Belmont Oct. 30.

God of Love (Cupid), winner of the GIII Grey S. at Woodbine last November, is one of three runners for Mark Casse. The Hall of Famer also conditions undefeated Golden Glider (Ghostzapper) and recent maiden winner Volcanic (Violence).

Howling Time (Not This Time) was a late scratch Friday.

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This Side Up: Not Yet a Lost Cause

As one of few institutions of American sport to rival its fastest two minutes, the Super Bowl will reopen some painful old wounds among our community. For while many in the Bluegrass presumably feel some allegiance to their nearest NFL team, they owe a deeper loyalty to the very acres on which the game will be contested–to the memories interred below.

Nostalgia for Hollywood Park will be especially piquant now that Arlington Park is in the sickening throes of a similar demise. It's no longer just John Henry, winner of two Arlington Millions and three Hollywood Invitational Handicaps, that unites these two storied venues. In both cases, it's hard to refute the narrative that football has long superseded horseracing in popular culture; that our own sport is like a faded, black-and-white movie, with a script that embarrassingly preserves outdated attitudes, treasured only by an obstinate minority of aficionados soon to be finally inundated by the inexorable tides of the digital age.

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Well, I don't know about that. It wasn't so long ago that everyone was prophesying the demolition of cinemas, outflanked by the domestic miracles of VHS, DVD and streaming. Same with bookshops, which have salvaged a viable market among people who actually feel relieved to drag their eyes from the tyranny of a small screen. But both cinema and publishing first had to be goaded from their complacency. Books were being churned out contemptuously, already halfway to garbage, so cheap was the paper and binding; they had to be made into beautiful objects that you would enjoy handling and possessing. Cinema, similarly, realized that it had to feel like an event, a spectacle, a proper indulgence.

None of us who know the timeless enchantment of the Thoroughbred will ever despair of its ability to captivate new generations of fans; to maintain a glamor once so easily conflated with that of the silver screen, as when founding shareholders of Hollywood Park included the Warner brothers, Walt Disney, Sam Goldwyn, Bing Crosby and Ronald Colman.

But everything depends on our proving equal to the stewardship of these noble animals. And it would be a blithe kind of fellow who congratulated us that we have no need, unlike cinema and publishing when they were in a corner, to raise our game.

As it is, we see a lot of cynics shoehorning high-sounding principles of equity and freedom into the service of their own interests, even when those appear quite blatantly opposed to those of the racehorse and the industry it sustains. Such grubby opportunism is hardly unique to our own walk of life, of course, but you would like to think that even the most self-absorbed and short-sighted members of our community can see how dangerously the stakes have been raised.

Sarah Andrew

Not that these alone need to see the bigger picture. Every time we lose a Hollywood Park, an Arlington, we can't blame only those whose conduct is disfiguring our standing in Main Street. The rest of us need to meet a crisis on this scale with commensurate flair and enterprise. God knows there's no shortage of people in this game with exceptional financial resources and, you know what, maybe some might even owe their wealth to more than hard work and a little luck. Maybe some of them are actually pretty smart, too. In which case, it seems inexcusable if enough of them can't get together and head off the next storied track closure. Just imagine the virtuous circle within their not-for-profit compass: low takeouts stimulating handle, handle stimulating prizemoney and facilities, in turn stimulating field sizes, further stimulating handle.

Coming from a little country like England, I am unqualified to say (though I might guess) why some American horsemen should prefer an existential crisis to fester under the sacrosanct purview of states, rather than tolerate the kind of national solution it plainly requires. As it is, however, that mosaic of fractured interests might well create an opportunity for exactly the kind of dynamism we might sooner hope to see applied to the repair of a dysfunctional system.

Say the current impasse between Bob Baffert and Churchill stays just as it is. Say his attorneys can't prise open the door to the Derby; and Baffert isn't big-hearted enough to absolve his patrons of an invidious sense that their fidelity is being tested in public; and those patrons, for their part, overlook that they are themselves only custodians of a dream for many others, from the breeder to the farrier, who will only ever get one shot at the Derby.

Well, if that remains the case, then what would you expect to be going through the head of any bold racetrack impresario out there right now? He or she will be musing over a first Saturday in May bereft of Messier (Empire Maker), Newgrange (Violence), potentially Corniche (Quality Road), and a whole bunch of other talents being developed by the most powerful barn in the country, maybe Blackadder (Quality Road) if he wins the El Camino Real Derby on Saturday; and not forgetting the fillies, like Adare Manor (Uncle Mo) and Eda (Munnings). How about lining up that lot for a million bucks over 10 furlongs, sometime at the beginning of May? You'd get eyeballs, and you might very well find yourself with a horse that outvotes the Derby winner at the Eclipse Awards this time next year.

Now there's a notion that might concentrate a few minds. And it would certainly conform with the spirit of the age–which is to say, it would bring together two different entities by offering the same answer to the question: “Screw everyone else, how do I gain most?”

Classic Causeway on debut last summer | Sarah Andrew

If that were to happen, then the GIII Sam F. Davis S. will doubtless come to seem so much shadowboxing. I hope not, because it would be wonderful to see Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) emulate White Abarrio (Race Day) in boosting the form of the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S.

This is one of only three colts eked from the final coverings of the great Giant's Causeway before his death in the spring of 2018, and I'm glad to see Brian Lynch laying down such business-like works over six and seven furlongs at Palm Meadows. I'm not sure what the masters of the past might say about modern trainers getting horses fit 48 seconds at a time, but I do know that Lynch will be playing to the genetic strengths of this particular colt.

After Giant Game bombed out in the GIII Holy Bull S., the onus is on Classic Causeway to carve a fitting memorial to their sire, who recently brought up a posthumous landmark with his 100th graded stakes winner. Classic Causeway did have the raw class to dash clear on debut at Saratoga last summer, but as a son of a Thunder Gulch mare he's entitled to the improvement he needs, with maturity and distance, to claw back the McPeek pair who had too much “foot” for him last fall.

Certainly a breakout performance from Classic Causeway would feel like a wholesome development in this whole Derby nightmare, as an evocation of old school principles among horses and horsemen alike. Because it's not just the rebels who have a cause. Don't forget that Mariah's Storm (Rahy), the dam of Giant's Causeway, won four graded stakes round Arlington; and his sire's mother Terlingua (Secretariat) won her first three starts all at Hollywood Park. Everything we do, every single thing we do, is built on the work of those who went before us; and everything we do, accordingly, should be undertaken with a view to handing on their legacy in the best possible shape.

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