Tag: Rich Strike

Leon Suspended for Ride on Rich Strike

The Churchill Downs stewards have suspended jockey Sonny Leon 15 days for his controversial ride on second-place finisher Rich Strike (Keen Ice) in Saturday's GII Lukas Classic S.

The head-on view of the race clearly showed Leon leaning into jockey Tyler Gaffalione on winner Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and he appeared to elbow his rival rider.

In a ruling issued Sunday, the stewards determined that Leon was guilty of “intentionally attempting to interfere with and impede the progress of a rival by repeatedly making physical contact with another rider in the stretch.”

Leon did not respond to a text message from the TDN seeking comment.

At about the time that Rich Strike started to come over and jostle with Hod Rod Charli,e it appeared that Leon's saddle might have slipped, which could have caused him to lose balance. Rich Strike's trainer, Eric Reed, told Horse Racing Nation that Leon told him his saddle did in fact slip.

“Sonny said the saddle loosened to the left,” Reed told the website. “He said, 'I started to lose my balance. The saddle slipped over and made me lean to the left.' If that doesn't happen, we win the race.”

Rich Strike passed Hot Rod Charlie a few jumps before the wire and appeared to have the race won, but Hot Rod Charlie surged again in the final strides to win by a head.

Several pundits took to Twitter to claim that Rich Strike would have won if not for the incident and that Leon cost his mount the race. Retired jockey and TV analyst Richard Migliore tweeted:

Leon's suspension is for 15 racing days and begins Oct. 9 and runs through Oct. 29.

Leon's greatest moment came in the GI Kentucky Derby when the jockey, who was largely unknown outside the Ohio circuit, guided Rich Strike to victory and was widely praised for his ride.

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Rich Strike Is For Real, And Other Thoughts

The Week in Review, by Bill Finley

Reflections on an interesting weekend of racing:

(*) No, Rich Strike did not win the GII Lukas Classic S. at Churchill Downs. A very game Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) had a second surge and came back just before the wire to nip him by a head. But not only was there no shame in losing, this was the best race of Rich Strike's career-better, yes, the GI Kentucky Derby-and finally put to rest that he was a one-race wonder who just got lucky on the first Saturday in May.

There was plenty of reason to doubt this horse after the Derby. He was 80-1, probably should have been even higher, and benefitted from a massive pace meltdown and a perfect trip under the unheralded rider Sonny Leon. It looked like a fluke and even more so when he never threatened in the GI Belmont S. and finished sixth, beaten 13 1/4 lengths.

He came back in the GI Travers S. and certainly didn't embarrass himself, running fourth behind the immensely talented divisional leader Epicenter (Not This Time). But fourth is not first and he lost by 5 ½ lengths.

Trainer Eric Reed then made the decision to skip the GI Pennsylvania Derby and take on older horses in the Lukas Classic. He didn't exactly find an easy spot. With Hod Rod Charlie, Happy Saver (Super Saver) and Art Collector (Bernardini), the race was loaded. Considering the quality of the field and that the race was for 3-year-olds and up, you can make the argument that the race was a tougher assignment than the Derby. And he ran his heart out, losing to an accomplished and tenacious Grade I winning 4-year-old who has bankrolled more than $5.5 million.

“He hooked the toughest horses he has ever ran against and ran on the outside the whole way,” Reed said after the race. “Look how far he has come since May. I can only imagine what it's going to be like next year.”

Good point: this colt is obviously improving and should be an outstanding 4-year-old.

It's also worth noting that he was much closer to the pace than normal in the race Saturday at Churchill. He was never further back than fourth and never more than 2 ½ lengths off the lead. That should serve him well as trying to win races from 15 lengths off the pace is never an easy way to go.

Reed hasn't said yet if Rich Strike will go next in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. The other option is the GI Clark S. on Nov. 25. Considering the depth of the Classic and the presence of a certain horse named Flightline (Tapit) and Rich Strike's affinity for the Churchill surface the Clark looks like the better option. Either way, it looks like he will show up and be competitive. He's not Flightline, he may not be Epicenter, but he is what he is–a very good horse and a deserving winner of the Kentucky Derby.

(*) The Lukas Classic was not without controversy. Aboard Rich Strike, Sonny Leon appeared to be leaning into Tyler Gaffalione on Hot Rod Charlie and elbowing him as the two horses neared the wire. Retired jockey and TV analyst Richard Migliore took to Twitter to criticize Leon and claim that his actions cost Rich Strike the race.

“After watching the Lukas classic numerous times @SONNYLEON1 cost Rich Strike the win by pulling him over to Hot Rod Charlie and putting his elbow into @Tyler_Gaff instead of going forward and driving to the wire,” he tweeted. “When does this BS stop? It's horse racing not jockey racing. Enough.”

NYRA linemaker David Aragona also had his say on Twitter.”As much as I'd like to praise how well Rich Strike ran today, this is pretty bad stuff from the jock,” he wrote. “Obviously crossing a line. A suspension is warranted for these kind of shenanigans.

Others on Twitter were kinder, arguing that Leon's saddle slipped and that was what caused him to lean into Gaffalione, which, the head-on replay shows, he clearly did.

(*) Maybe the GI Woodward S. was nothing more than a paid public workout for Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and all he needed to do was get around the racetrack. He did in fact het the job done. But with his reputation and his odds of 1-20 weren't you expecting more than a 1 1/4-length win and a 97 Beyer figure? There was even a moment when it looked like eventual runner-up Law Professor (Constitution) was going to beat and post what would have been a colossal upset.Take nothing away from Life Is Good. He's won three Grade I races this year and if not for Flightline would be the favorite for the Horse of the Year title. But if he is going to be in competitive in the Classic he will need to run much better than he did Saturday.

(*) The GI Awesome Again S. was a chance to enhance Flightline's reputation, if such a thing is possible. The race included, in Country Grammer (Tonalist), Royal Ship (Brz) and Express Train (Union Rags), the horses who were second, third and fourth when Flightline turned in his electrifying performance in the GI Pacific Classic. Had that group come back with strong collective efforts in the Awesome Again it would have made Flightiline's race look even better.

It didn't happen.

The race was won by Defunded (Dialed In), who was coming of a sixth-place finish in the GII Pat O'Brien S. Country Grammer was second but was a disappointment at odds of 11-10. Express Train was fourth and Royal Ship was sixth. Neither ran well.

This doesn't mean that Flightline isn't a once-in-a-lifetime talent, but it's clear that, beyond him, the older male division in California is a weak one.

(*) Horse racing remains the only gambling game where you can cash a winning bet and feel like a chump. It happened again in the Awesome Again. When the field was loading into the gate Defunded was 8-1. The gate opened, he got out front and, lo and behold, he was 5-1 on the next flash. He paid $12.

Once again, the computer players got fat and happy at the expense of the everyday player who wagered on Defunded thinking they had bet on a horse that would pay in the neighborhood of 8-1. The winners were made to feel like losers. And the problem is not going to go away. The CAW players wager far too much money for any track to refuse their bets.

Fixed odds can't come soon enough, but it looks like industry is in no hurry to at least give them a try. Why? In fact, FanDuel is prepared to offer bets on racing on its sports betting platforms, but with pari-mutuel odds. You think the sports bettor would be OK with betting the Mets at -160 only to be told after the first pitch the odds were really -210? Of course not. It's hard to imagine a marriage of sports betting and racing working without fixed odds.

(*) Chad Brown keeps getting better and better with young dirt horses. When he won the GI Champagne S. at Aqueduct with Blazing Sevens (Good Magic), it was his second straight win in the race and his fourth overall. Blazing Seven's sire, Good Magic (Curlin), was second in the 2017 Champagne.

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Hot Rod Charlie Denies Rich Strike in Lukas Classic

   The gutsy Hot Rod Charlie clawed his way back late to deny a late rally from GI Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike in the GII Lukas Classic S. Saturday beneath the Twin Spires. Favored at 6-5, the bay hustled up to press Art Collector (Bernardini) through opening splits of :23.55 and :47.94. Turning up the heat as three-quarters went in 1:11.77, the bay took control entering the far turn and had his nose in front at the top of the stretch. Rich Strike rallied up the outside and briefly headed Hot Rod Charlie, but the gritty 4-year-old dug deep to deny the Derby winner in the shadow of the wire.

Winner of the GI Pennsylvania Derby last year, Hot Rod Charlie checked in second in both the G1 Dubai World Cup in March and the GIII Salvatore Mile June 18. He was last seen finishing third behind Saturday's GI Woodward S. winner Life Is Good (Into Mischief) in Saratoga's GI Whitney S. Aug. 6.

Pedigree Notes:

Hot Rod Charlie is the lone Grade I winner for his sire Oxbow. He is a half-brother to champion and new Spendthrift sire Mitole. Larry best went to $1.9 million to acquire the winner's dam Indian Miss in foal to Into Mischief at the 2020 KEENOV sale. The resulting foal was a colt and she produced an Instagrand colt this year. Indian Miss was bred back to Practical Joke.

Saturday, Churchill Downs
LUKAS CLASSIC S.-GII, $498,000, Churchill Downs, 10-1, 3yo/up, 1 1/8m, 1:49.77, ft.
1–HOT ROD CHARLIE, 125, c, 4, by Oxbow
                1st Dam: Indian Miss (Broodmare Of The Year), by Indian Charlie
                2nd Dam: Glacken's Gal, by Smoke Glacken
                3rd Dam: Lady Diplomat, by Silver Deputy
($17,000 Ylg '19 FTKFEB; $110,000 Ylg '19 FTKOCT).
O-Roadrunner Racing, Boat Racing, LLC, Strauss Bros Racing &
Gainesway Thoroughbreds, Ltd.; B-Edward A. Cox (KY); T-Doug
O'Neill; J-Tyler Gaffalione. $305,520. Lifetime Record:
GISW-USA, GSW & GISP-UAE, 18-5-5-4, $5,556,720. *1/2 to
Mitole (Eskendereya), Ch. Male Sprinter, MGISW, $3,104,910.
Werk Nick Rating: A+.
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the
free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Rich Strike, 122, c, 3, Keen Ice–Gold Strike, by Smart Strike.
O-RED TR-Racing, LLC; B-Calumet Farm (KY); T-Eric R. Reed.
$99,200.
3–King Fury, 121, c, 4, Curlin–Taris, by Flatter. ($950,000 Ylg '19
FTSAUG). O-Fern Circle Stables & Three Chimneys Farm, LLC;
B-Heider Family Stables, LLC (KY); T-Kenneth G. McPeek.
$49,600.
Margins: HD, 4 1/4, 1 1/4. Odds: 1.33, 4.86, 16.20.
Also Ran: Happy Saver, Art Collector, Chess Chief.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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This Side Up: Will Travers Stars Stick to Script?

Our sport thrives on anticipation; our business, on outcomes. But actually it can take a while to unpick one from the other–especially when even a race as storied as the GI Runhappy Travers S. is not just an end in itself, but also a potential means to viability for the whole program of whoever is lucky enough to own the winner.

In principle, the bare couple of minutes dividing anticipation from outcome at Saratoga on Saturday will be history tangibly in the making. From the flux of hopes and interests vested in the maturing Thoroughbreds that enter the gate, a single name will suddenly be petrified into the pantheon.

In reality, however, it's very seldom that we can know quite what it is we might be looking at. In terms of volunteering a stallion of due stature, for instance, it has to be acknowledged that the Travers overall shares a rather patchy profile with the GI Kentucky Derby either side of the last horse to win both, Street Sense in 2007. Take out Bernardini, who won the Travers the year before, and it's only recently that a couple of young stallions have begun to shore things up again for either race.

Poignantly, it does appear as though the spectacular flowering of Arrogate in 2016 was a legitimate signpost–only for the road to plunge clean off a cliff. Those bidding for his final crop of yearlings at Keeneland in a few days' time will be contesting a legacy that has very quickly evolved, from an unsurprisingly slow start, via the charismatic endeavors of Secret Oath and now Artorius.

(Listen to this column as a podcast.)

 

 

For the time being, at any rate, Artorius does feel like quite a good example of the way we tend to look into the future through the prism of the past. He brings a fairly irresistible narrative into the Travers, being even more lightly raced than was his sire when picking up the pieces against exhausted Triple Crown protagonists. And, being out of an elite Ghostzapper racemare, he does look tantalizingly eligible to salvage Arrogate's legacy, if only he can cope with this steep elevation in grade. Yet it's almost as though those high emotional stakes have somehow been loaded into odds that imply some ordained destiny.

Yet who would presume to predict the future, when even the past can take so long to separate itself into coherence? Nobody, of course, could have foreseen the tragic denouement of Arrogate's tale. But most of us were pretty sure of where we stood with Gun Runner, when he staggered into third in the Travers, fully 15 lengths behind Arrogate: a horse that had shown his hand, precocious enough to run third in the Derby but apparently tapering off by this point. Gun Runner persevered, however, and after observing Arrogate reach the bottom of the barrel–presumably an oil barrel–in Dubai, he ran up to that sequence of five Grade Is by an aggregate 27 1/2 lengths.

And now here he is, poised to seal one of the most remarkable stud debuts of recent times with two runners–and don't forget that he would have a third, but for the local prohibition of Taiba's trainer–in a race that offers a pretty instructive snapshot of the shifting landscape among Kentucky stallions. Another young gun, Upstart, fields a son who has had this race in mind ever since that fleeting flirtation with an uncontested coronation on the home turn in the Derby; while Not This Time, consolidating his own outstanding start, matches Gun Runner with two: Epicenter, whose candidature for divisional honors makes a Grade I feel pretty imperative, and Ain't Life Grand.

Of the established elite, indeed, only Medaglia d'Oro can muster a candidate to emulate his 2002 success in outsider Gilded Age. To be fair, he also has a stake in proceedings through the dam of Ain't Life Grand, Cat Moves. This is the only mare owned by Peggy and Ray Shattuck, whose homebred GII Iowa Derby winner would hardly be as stupefying a result here as Rich Strike, himself of course by a Travers winner in Keen Ice, back at Churchill in May. While expectations for Rich Strike seem pretty much back to what they were on Derby day, Ain't Life Grand announced himself at Saratoga with a molten 45.88 workout last week, fastest of 79 clocked that morning.

Ain't Life Grand with Tammy Fox aboard | Sarah Andrew

Certainly the game could do with another fairytale. There's no need to dwell on the potential for awkwardness, in showcasing our best to the outside world, when three of eight runners are saddled by a trainer currently subject to such uncomfortable attention. Having been raised locally, this race is one he would prize perhaps beyond any other. But there you go: all of us have to accept that human capacity for anticipation is distinctly finite; and that fulfilment belongs to the complex, unpredictable realm of outcomes.

Setting all that aside, my own anticipations remain stubborn as ever. As Chad Brown would agree, he is only one of many whose dreams are centered on these three horses. And our community could seek no more flattering representation, to those beyond, than Brereton C. Jones and his family at Airdrie Stud, breeders of Zandon. And if this colt can mark the 50th anniversary of the farm's foundation by finally getting it all together here, even greater laurels would be on the line just down the road at Keeneland in the fall.

Yes, I know: all I'm doing is choosing a different script from the one that appears to favor Artorius so inexorably. I'm shoehorning Zandon's ostensible need for a particular tactical scenario, and a different kind of race from the cat-and-mouse of his latest start, into a storyline of far greater neatness and symmetry than tends to be indulged by this unsentimental, unpredictable world. But we're all sports fans first. We all enjoy our anticipation while it lasts. And we can leave dealing with all those business outcomes until such time as we know what they actually are.

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