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Zulu Alpha Out Of Kentucky Downs’ Turf Cup, Retired To Old Friends

Zulu Alpha, the 2019 winner of Kentucky Downs' $1 million Calumet Turf Cup, will scratch out of Saturday's Grade 2 stakes and has been retired, owner Michael Hui said today. Trainer Mike Maker also confirmed the defection to the Kentucky Downs racing office.

“I'm going to scratch Zulu,” Hui said by phone. “He's going to be retired to Old Friends. There's not a whole lot that's physically wrong with him. After consultation with Mike this weekend, he just believes he will not be competitive at this level.”

Maker, who has won a Calumet Turf Cup a record four times, still has four horses in the 1 1/2-mile stakes in Tide of the Sea, Bluegrass Parkway, Ajourneytofreedom and Glynn County, with a fifth potential starter if Dynadrive draws in from the also-eligible list. Dynadrive needs one more scratch to run after the defections of Zulu Alpha and Fantasioso.

Hui said he long ago worked out an arrangement with Old Friends to send Zulu Alpha to the Thoroughbred retirement home in Georgetown, Ky., when the now 8-year-old gelding's racing career was over. Hui had Hogy, his 2017 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint winner, at Old Friends until his death earlier this year.

Zulu Alpha retires with 12 wins out of 37 starts, along with five seconds and six thirds, for earnings of $2,269,118. Hui claimed the gelding almost exactly three years ago for $80,000 with the 2019 Calumet Turf Cup in mind. That became one of seven graded stakes Zulu Alpha won for Hui, including the 2020 Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf.

After coming in third in last year's Calumet Turf Cup, Zulu Alpha raced only twice this year, finishing fifth in the Grade 3 Arlington Stakes and seventh in the Grade 1 Mr. D (formerly the Arlington Million). Maker conceded a couple of weeks ago that age might have caught up with the grand gelding, but added that two races was too small a sample to not give Zulu Alpha another shot over a course he loves as long as he was doing well.

“I'm not really a true horseman; I'm more of a racetrack guy,” Hui said. “I was very blessed to have Hogy, and unfortunately he passed. But Zulu, at the racetrack he was at a different level. Very competitive but he also liked attention from humans. His race record speaks for itself. He took me to a level I had never dreamed of. The right thing to do is while he's good, he deserves the utmost in retirement.

“I have all the faith in Mike. He's guided me on this path several times now. But Zulu was a special one. When Mike says he's not competitive at this level, I have to believe it.”

Hui doesn't expect to have another horse like Zulu Alpha, but he's going to keep trying, including via high-priced claims. “We have the mindset that we point toward Kentucky Downs, mark the calendar and work backward,” he said.

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Kentucky Downs Turf Pick of the Day for Sept. 11

Steve Sherack and Brian DiDonato give their best bet for each day of racing during the FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs. $100 Win/Place format; highest bankroll at the end wins.

Steve Sherack: Thursday's Results – Couple of late gate scratches completely killed my price (went from 6-1 to 5-2), but still great to finally get on the board with Red Danger after a steady diet of no-shows with logical horses to start this thing off. Bankroll: $550.

Race 8 – A full field of turf sprinters are signed on for this seven-figure payday and the lightly raced 8yo gelding Bombard may find himself all alone on the lead if the AE doesn't draw in. He came within a neck of pulling off a 19-1, front-running upset over soft ground in this race last year and he appears to be in even better form this time around off a win in Santa Anita's GIII Daytona S. in late May. Selection: #3 Bombard (10-1).

Brian DiDonato: Thursday's Results – Jungle Juice (Ire) finished sixth. Bankroll: $0.

Race 10 – What. A. Card. My head was admittedly spinning trying to decide who to play, and I ultimately landed on Annex in the GII Franklin-Simpson S. The 'TDN Rising Star' showed an impressive turn of foot to take his first three starts, but has been a bit disappointing since then, albeit with some excuses along the way (though he was flattered by Public Sector last Saturday). I'm thinking the cut back to 6 1/2 furlongs and one turn might wake him up. His quick burst should be aided by this configuration, and the make-up of the field is not such that I'm too worried about him getting run off his feet early. Selection: #7 Annex (9-2).

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Biancone: Diamond Oops ‘Runs his Best When He’s Doing Something Different’

When Andie Biancone saddles Diamond Oops in Kentucky Downs $1 million G3 FanDuel Turf Sprint on Saturday it will be yet another episode in the ongoing multi-generational, two-family affair.

Diamond Oops, the 6-year-old son of Lookin At Lucky, is a member of the third of four generations of his family trained by Biancone's father, Patrick. Andie has joined the family business, is an assistant trainer and the exercise rider for the multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire gelding.

After Diamond Oops ran third as the 8-5 favorite in the six-furlong G3 Smile Stakes on dirt on July 3 at Gulfstream Park, his connections decided that it was time to try something new and began preparing for a September trip to Kentucky Downs.

“Initially, the plan for this year was to really focus on six furlongs on the dirt, because that's really his niche. That's really where we feel like he does his best,” she said. “But last race, we ran him and he just ran like a pretty flat third. We think it's because he's bored. This horse runs his best when he's doing something different. He loves to run six furlongs on the dirt, a mile on the turf, five furlongs on the turf. He loves the change. He's so intelligent and he really appreciates doing things differently. I think that's why he loves Kentucky Downs so much. It's because it's not a race track. It's so big, so different. And he's just so happy.”

During training hours Wednesday, Diamond Oops showed Biancone, 24, just how pleased he is to be at the sprawling track in rural southern Kentucky very close to the border with Tennessee.

“It's like he's at Disneyland here,” she said. “It's just kind of blowing his mind a little bit. The space. The grass. Everything. He's so excited. He's also just so well right now. My dad really has him in his best form.

“He came out of the barn, heard some gravel move and then he just reared straight up and bashed me in the face with his head. I'm a little concussed, but it's a long way from my heart. It's okay. I can survive. He definitely felt sorry afterwards. He was giving me the baby eyes like 'Mom, I'm so sorry.' I was like, 'Hmm. OK. You can make it up to me on Saturday.' I'm like, 'Save it, save it for the race. Please keep yourself composed for 48 hours.”

The horse and human connections go back more than 20 years when Patrick Biancone was training Diamond Oops' grandsire, the multiple graded-stakes winner Whywhywhy and his second dam Patriotic Diva, owned by Kin Hui. After Patriotic Diva retired, Hui bred her to Whywhywhy and that mating produced the 2007 filly Patriotic Viva, who became the dam of Diamond Oops. Patrick Biancone also trained other foals dropped by Patriotic Viva. This summer, the 2-year-old Diamond Wow, a daughter of Diamond Oops' sister, Patriotic Diamond, broke her maiden at Gulfstream Park.

“It's been really cool. They're just such a classy family,” Andie Biancone said.

Bred by Hui, Diamond Oops is co-owned by Hui's Diamond 100 Racing Club, Amy Dunne, D P Racing and Patrick Biancone Racing. He wasn't supposed to end up in Biancone's care.

“We named him Oops, because he was so ugly and we got stuck with him, kind of,” Andie Biancone said. “We tried to, sell him as a weanling and he was a no-bid at the sale. It's so funny because when he won the Phoenix (in 2020), Keeneland posted like a little video of him in the ring, I always wondered what he looked like as a baby. And they posted this video of him in the ring. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, a mule.' He really looked like a donkey. It's so funny how much he's grown into himself. He's obviously gorgeous now.”

Diamond Oops won a pair of stakes as a 2-year-old, but was limited to a single start as a 3-year-old by what was feared to be a career-ending leg injury. After a 10-month layoff, Diamond Oops returned to competition and won the Smile in his third start. He was second in a pair of G1 stakes, the A.G. Vanderbilt on dirt and the Shadwell Turf Mile, and was eighth in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and completed his season with a victory in the G3 Mr. Prospector.

Last year, he captured G2 stakes on turf and dirt and was sixth in the Breeders' Cup Sprint.

Noting that Diamond Oops wasn't at his best later in the season in the Breeders' Cup, his connections gave him a couple of months off during the winter and plotted a conservative schedule for 2021. The Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs was a reworking of the plan and will be his sixth career start on grass. A victory will earn him a guaranteed, fees-paid berth in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint through the “Win and You're In” program.

Based on his history and the way he feels under her in the morning, Andie Biancone expects him to run well Saturday.

“He's gutsy,” she said. “When he ran the Shadwell Turf Mile, I thought that was pretty bold to run him two turns, but he finished a really game second. That's just him. He loves a challenge. He's not afraid. He doesn't back down and he literally thinks he's like the only horse in the world. It's just that cocky attitude of his.”

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Keeneland and Kentucky Downs Team Up for KEESEP Graduates

Horses offered at auction during the upcoming Keeneland September Yearling Sale will be eligible to run in a pair of $250,000 allowance races at the 2022 FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs.

Kentucky Downs will stage one $250,000 allowance race for 2-year-old fillies and one for 2-year-old colts and geldings restricted to horses that go through the sales ring at this year's Keeneland September Sale. Yearlings that are sold as well as those not reaching their reserve bid will be eligible for the lucrative allowance events the following September at Kentucky Downs.

“This innovative venture between Keeneland and Kentucky Downs is a win/win, rewarding those horsemen who buy yearlings at the September Sale with lucrative racing opportunities while enhancing Kentucky's racing circuit,” Keeneland Vice President of Racing Gatewood Bell said. “It is an investment very much in keeping with Keeneland's mission to strengthen the sport of racing, and an example of how collaboration among racing entities benefits our industry.”

“Every meet, owners tell us after winning a race that now they have more money for the Keeneland September Yearling sale,” said Ted Nicholson, Kentucky Downs' Vice President for Racing. “This is just another incentive to keep those sales horses in Kentucky or to bring them back to the state to race. This should also help breeders and consignors of yearlings with turf pedigrees, giving potential owners extra reason to buy a grass horse.”

Funding will come out of the Kentucky Downs' horsemen's purse account under an agreement with the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association, which represents owners and trainers at the commonwealth's five Thoroughbred racetracks.

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