mike maker | Horse Racing Free Tips

Special Reserve Faces Off With Streaking Just Might In Friday’s Phoenix

Paradise Farms Corp. and David Staudacher's Special Reserve headlines a field of seven sprinters entered Tuesday for Friday's 169th running of the $250,000 Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G2) going six furlongs on the main track. Friday is opening day of Keeneland's Fall Meet, which marks the track's 85th anniversary.

Scheduled as the eighth race on Friday's 10-race program with a 5:10 p.m. ET post time, the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix is a Breeders' Cup Challenge race with the winner receiving a fees-paid berth into the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) to be run Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Trained by Mike Maker, Special Reserve has compiled a 6-4-2-0 record in 2021 and enters Friday's race off a runner-up effort in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt (G1) at Saratoga on July 31. In his lone Keeneland start, Special Reserve was second in this spring's Commonwealth (G3).

Joel Rosario, who was aboard in the Vanderbilt, has the mount Friday out of post position six.

Looming as the main threat to Special Reserve is Griffon Farms and trainer Michelle Lovell's Just Might.

Winner of his past four starts, all coming in stakes, Just Might enters Friday's race off dirt victories at Colonial Downs and most recently at Churchill Downs. Colby Hernandez has the mount from post four.

The field for the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix, with riders and weights from the inside, is:

Quick Tempo (Sophie Doyle, 118)
Mucho (Reylu Gutierrez, 120)
Endorsed (Julien Leparoux, 120)
Just Might (Hernandez, 120)
Aloha West (Jose Ortiz, 120)
Special Reserve (Rosario, 120)
Sir Alfred James (Corey Lanerie, 120)

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Maker, Ramsey Settle Civil Suit Over Unpaid Training Bills

Trainer Mike Maker and owner/breeders Ken and Sarah Ramsey have agreed to the dismissal of a civil case brought by Maker over unpaid training bills. Fayette Circuit Court Judge Julie Goodman entered the order dismissing the case with prejudice on Sept. 15 “pursuant to a settlement.”

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Maker had brought suit in March against the Eclipse Award-winning couple in March, claiming the Ramseys had been delinquent in paying training bills to him for nearly four years and owed him $905,357.29 at the time of his filing.

“It's not that I'm not paying, it's just that I guess I'm not paying fast enough,” Ken Ramsey told the Paulick Report in March. “I have never beaten anybody out of a dime.”

A subsequent motion from Maker suggested the Ramseys paid the balance down after news of the suit broke, but did not keep to their own suggested payment schedule and eventually stopped sending checks. Ramsey disputed the arrangement the couple had with Maker regarding payments and the total amount owed.

Wesley Ward filed suit against the Ramseys around the same time, making similar allegations about delinquent payment and stating he was owed $974,790.40 in bills, interest, and purses. That case, filed in Jessamine Circuit Court, appears to still be open as of this writing.

Learn more about how and why trainers carry balances from owners in this March edition of The Friday Show.

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‘He Took Us On The Ride of A Lifetime’: Zulu Alpha Arrives At Old Friends

Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement farm in Georgetown, KY, welcomed new retiree multiple graded stakes winner Zulu Alpha on Monday.

Owner Michael Hui and trainer Mike Maker announced the retirement of the 8-year-old son of Street Cry this weekend, after the gelding was scratched from the Sept. 11 running of the Grade 2 Calumet Turf Cup Stakes at Kentucky Downs.

A successful claim by Hui in 2018, Zulu Alpha captured the 2019 Calumet Turf Cup for his new connections by 3 1/4 lengths and went on to win seven graded stakes, including the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes at Gulfstream Park and the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland, both in 2020.

Zulu Alpha retires with 12 wins from 37 starts, for earnings of $2,269,084.

“Zulu came to us via the claim box, initially placed with John Oritz, then transferred to Mike Maker for a winter campaign in south Florida. The rest is history,” said owner Hui. “He took us on the ride of a lifetime and reached a level of success we could only dream of. Seven graded wins later, he now will call Old Friends home. Thank you Mike Maker and team, thank you Old friends, and Thank you Zulu Alpha, we are forever in your debt.”

“We are very excited to have Zulu Alpha with us,” said Old Friends President Michael Blowen. “We are grateful to Michael Hui for allowing us to care for this great horse, and we know that he will be a fan favorite.”

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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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