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One Of Bloom’s ‘All-Time Favorite Horses,’ Millionaire Snapper Sinclair Readies For 2021 Debut

Millionaire Snapper Sinclair is scheduled to make his 2021 debut in Thursday's seventh race at Oaklawn, a 1-mile allowance for older horses.

Snapper Sinclair hasn't started since finishing second in the $250,000 Cigar Mile Handicap (G1) Dec. 5 at Aqueduct for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen and owner Jeff Bloom, who also campaigned champion and multiple Oaklawn stakes winner Midnight Bisou.

Snapper Sinclair has only won five times in a 29-race career, but the 6-year-old son of City Zip has bankrolled $1,438,260. The horse has several near misses on his stakes-heavy resume, including runner-up finishes in the $750,000 Tourist Mile (beaten three-quarters of a length) Sept. 7 at Kentucky Downs, the first division of the $100,000 Fifth Season Stakes (beaten a neck) last year at Oaklawn and the $350,000 Essex Handicap (beaten a head) in 2019 at Oaklawn. Snapper Sinclair also was beaten a nose in the $400,000 Risen Star Stakes (G2) for 3-year-olds in 2018 at Fair Grounds.

Snapper Sinclair recorded his biggest career victory to date in the 2019 Tourist Mile over Kentucky Downs' European-style turf course. Bloom said “a little bit of everything” has kept Snapper Sinclair in training. The flashy bay has been based at Oaklawn since mid-December.

“He's healthy, he's sound,” Bloom said. “I feel like we're just inches away from a viable stallion career. He finished second in the Grade 1 Cigar. If he wins that race, it's a game changer for him. He's just such a fun horse to have and we like to race a lot. To be able to race with a horse as honest as Snapper Sinclair, it's part of why you keep coming back for more with this kind of thing. Snapper will always be one of my all-time favorite horses. He's a barn favorite for Steve and his crew. At the end of the day, it comes down to as long as Snapper wants to continue doing what he does and he stays sound and healthy, then so be it. Let's do it.”

Snapper Sinclair was an allowance winner at the 2019 Oaklawn meeting. He has had only two starts in allowance company since the summer of 2019, the last a third-place finish in a 1-mile grass event Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs. Seven-time Oaklawn riding champion Ricardo Santana Jr. is named to ride Snapper Sinclair, the 6-5 program favorite, Thursday. The race also attracted Grade 3 winner Plainsman, the early 5-2 second choice.

“In talking to Steve about it, it's kind of like Snapper sort of deserves a spot like this to kind of kick things off,” Bloom said. “He's shown up to every tough spot out there over the course of his career … none of these races are gimmies, but it's softer competition and, hopefully, we get that win for him. He's always knocking on the door. It would be nice to get him another confidence booster, get him a win, walk him into the winner's circle and then start planning his course of action following this spot.”

Probable post time for Thursday's seventh race is 4:09 p.m. (Central).

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Trainer Chad Brown Finally Going For The Green At Kentucky Downs

With two wins from three starters on opening day and another four horses entered this weekend, Chad Brown – America's champion turf trainer for eight consecutive years – has made a connection this season with Kentucky Downs, the one track in the U.S.A. that runs all its races on grass.

Now that he has a Kentucky division based at Churchill Downs managed by Whit Beckman, the four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer is better positioned to compete for the exceptional purses offered by Kentucky Downs over its distinctive European-style course.

“I think a lot of it is just stabling at Churchill, the proximity now gives us that option,” Beckman said of running at Kentucky Downs, where an average of $2 million a day is scheduled to be paid out in purses over this six-date meet. “Where focusing primarily on Saratoga and the Northeast in the past, shipping-wise it didn't make a lot of sense. You'd run in Kentucky on Derby Day and be out and back in New York pretty soon afterward. I think just having the string down here at Churchill makes it doable and easy. We're in and out in a day, just like any other race-and-return situation.”

Now the friendly ribbing is that Brown finally found Kentucky Downs, and he didn't waste any time capitalizing. His team pounced on Monday's opening card and collected total of $500,400 with a victory by Juddmonte Farm's Flavius in the $750,000 Tourist Mile Stakes and Head of Plains Partners' Fluffy Socks in a $90,000 maiden special weight race.

“I'm thrilled getting to go to Kentucky Downs,” said Beckman, a Louisville product who never before had the opportunity to go to the track while working for New York-based Todd Pletcher and now Brown. “I thought it was an awesome place. Just such a nice place to race horses, just a different feel from your traditional racetrack dynamics. I loved it down there. I thought it was great.”

Led by Regal Glory, the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the one-mile G3 English Channel Ladies Turf, the Brown barn will be well-represented this weekend. Graded stakes-placed Tapit Today also has a place in the gate for the Ladies Turf; Klaravich Stable's Front Run the Fed looks to be a contender in the deep G3 RUNHAPPY Turf Sprint field; Lady Lawyer is on the also-eligible list for the G3 Real Solution Ladies Sprint and needs a couple of defections to draw into the body of the race.

Brown's rise to the top of the North American trainer's standings table has been fueled by his skill with turf horses. After a five-year run on the staff of the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, Brown opened his own stable in Nov. 2007, managing a total of 10 horses sent to him by prominent owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey and Gary and Mary West. Brown's first graded stakes win came a year later on the turf in the G3 Miss Grillo with Maram, who then gave Brown his first Breeder's Cup win in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

In 2012, Brown ended the season atop the turf training earnings list, a spot he has maintained in every year since. Last year, his turf horses earned $24.2 million of his all-surfaces total of $31.1 million.

Regal Glory, bred and owned by Paul Pompa, made a substantial contribution to the Brown stable's turf earnings last year, banking $338,834 with a 3-2-0 record from six grass starts as a 3-year-old. The daughter of Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom won the Penn Oaks and completed the Saratoga double of the G3 Lake George and the G2 Lake Placid. She is winless in three starts – two of them G1 races – since the Lake Placid last August. Each of those races was won by another filly or mare from Brown's deep stable of female grass runners. Following a fourth-place finish in the G1 Just A Game at Belmont Park, Regal Glory was shipped to Kentucky in early August and has had five works for Beckman. Jose Ortiz, with two wins and three seconds in five starts on Regal Glory, has the mount.

“She's been training away down at Churchill and we're really happy with her progress and how she's maintaining,” Beckman said. “She's just been up against tough stablemates.”

Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano rode Flavius in the Tourist Stakes and will be aboard Tapit Today for the first time in the Ladies Turf. The 5-year-old Tapit Today, co-owned by William Lawrence and Bradley Thoroughbreds, returned from a five-month layoff to run fourth, beaten 1 ¾ lengths by Nay Lady Nay, in the G3 Matchmaker on July 18 at Monmouth Park. The Kentucky-bred daughter of Tapit is seeking her first stakes victory.

Front Run the Fed enters the RUNHAPPY Turf Sprint off a two-month break in races following his victory in an allowance/optional claimer at on July 5 at Belmont Park. He has been the favorite in his last eight races, winning four, topped by the Better Talk Now in 2019 at Saratoga. This will be his first try in graded-stakes company and first six-furlong race since April 2019 for the off-the-pace runner.

Rabbah Bloodstock's Lady Lawyer, a daughter of Blame bred by Claiborne Farm, started her career in Europe with John Gosden. She was moved to the U.S. to Brown's care this season and has a win and a second in two starts for her new trainer. In her most recent start, she prevailed by a neck in the 5 ½-furlong allowance/optional claimer, her first win on turf. All three of her wins in Great Britain were over artificial surfaces.

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Trainer Mike Maker Enters ‘Only’ Ten On Opening Day At Kentucky Downs

Trainer Mike Maker told his barn crew to enjoy an easy day Monday when the RUNHAPPY Meet at Kentucky Downs kicks off its six-date run featuring exclusively grass racing.

“I said to the guys at the barn, 'You guys can have a light opening day and then after that we'll pick it up a little bit,” Maker, Kentucky Downs' all-time winningest trainer, said cheerfully. “We entered nine the first day, and we have 15 to 20 every other day.”

Entries for opening day were taken Wednesday with 154 horses making the program: 127 in the body for the 11-race card and another 27 needing defections in order to get in off the also-eligible list. Post time for the first race is 12:10 p.m. Central.

Maker actually wound up having 10 entries Monday, with three needing scratches to run. Among those he entered are Parlor and Hembree in the $750,000 Tourist Mile, the last of four stakes on the WinStar Farm Day card. The capacity field of 12 also includes 2019 winner Snapper Sinclair and Grade 1 winner Next Shares.

Maker claimed Parlor for $80,000 last November at the Fair Grounds for owners Michael Hui, Hooties Racing and WSS Racing. Hui also owns Zulu Alpha. After two races, Maker added blinkers to Parlor, and the 6-year-old gelding responded with four strong efforts, including third by a total of a half-length to multiple graded-stakes winner Factor This in Churchill Downs' Grade 2 Wise Dan and a nose defeat in Keeneland's Grade 1 Maker's Mark Mile won by 2019 Preakness winner War of Will.

“When we claimed him, he had a little bit of a throat issue that we worked on,” Maker said of Parlor. “That seems to be corrected. I'd like to think that's the basis for his improvement. The blinkers were more or less to get him involved a little early.”

The Tourist Mile will be Parlor's fifth year to run at Kentucky Downs, having finished second by a neck (Kentucky Downs Juvenile), second by three-quarters of a length (Dueling Grounds Derby), third (Old Friends, now known as the Tapit Stakes) and ninth in last year's Tourist Mile.

Three Diamonds Farm's Hembree was claimed 2 1/2 years ago for $50,000 and is one of Maker's many claims to become graded-stakes winners on turf. He was fourth in last year's Tourist Mile after winning a Kentucky Downs allowance race in 2018. Hembree most recently was third behind Tourist contender Spectacular Gem in Ellis Park's $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Tourist Mile.

Maker has the intriguing Indy Tourist in the $500,000 More Than Ready Juvenile. The other stakes Monday are the $500,000 The Mint Juvenile Fillies and the $300,000 One Dreamer for fillies and mares who haven't won a stakes in 2020.

“We had high hopes on him,” Maker said of Indy Tourist, adding of a 12-length defeat in Indy Tourist's debut, “We ran him at Churchill Downs first time and he stood in the gate, lost all chance and then came back and won by like 16 at Indiana.” Not to nitpick, but it was 15 3/4 lengths on turf at the More Than Ready Juvenile's mile distance.

The Maker arsenal includes the defending champ in the $1 million, Grade 3 Calumet Farm Kentucky Turf Cup in Zulu Alpha. The 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup heads the five-stakes extravaganza on the Sept. 12 Calumet Farm Day at Kentucky Downs. Zulu Alpha kick-started his 2020 season by taking Gulfstream Park's Grade 1, $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf. His only defeat in four starts this year was a fast-flying second while losing the Grade 2 Kitten's Joy Pan American to stablemate Bemma's Boy by a neck.

“He's breathing fire, ready to roll,” Maker said of Zulu Alpha.

Maker entered Tiger Blood, a $62,500 claim by Parlor's ownership group, in Friday's Grade 2, $250,000 Twin Spires Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs but said he is likely to scratch to run in Kentucky Downs' $750,000, Grade 3 RUNHAPPY Turf Sprint on Sept. 12, a race whose winner gets a fees-paid spot in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint Nov. 7 at Keeneland.

“He's an old classy horse,” he said. “He hasn't won for us yet, but maybe this will be the one.”

Skychai Racing's Jolting Joe, who finished second in his racing debut last year at Kentucky Downs behind Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass winner Art Collector, is being pointed for the Sept. 10 $750,000 Gun Runner Dueling Grounds Derby, Maker said. The New York-bred Joltin Joe reeled off four seconds (including to Tampa Bay Derby winner and Arkansas Derby runner-up King Guillermo) before earning his first victory in a $100,000 New York Stallion Series Stakes at Saratoga in his last start.

Maker's 55 career wins tops Kentucky Downs' all-time standings, with Wesley Ward second at 32. Maker's $7,394,565 in purse earnings dwarfs Ward's $3,448,575, which also ranks second all-time.

However, Maker's run of four straight Kentucky Downs training titles, with a combined 33 victories, ended last year when he won only three races. The title, at four wins, was shared by Joe Sharp, Ian Wilkes and Ward. But Maker also had a track-record 14 seconds which helped him easily win the money title with purse earnings of $1,435,771, almost double Rusty Arnold's next-best $791,094.

“Like I told everybody, second-place finishes at Kentucky Downs are like winning at other tracks.… Titles are nice. You always like to win if you can,” Maker said, adding with a laugh. “But like I said, if I had to pick between the two, I'd prefer to have the money title.”

Maker has more starts — 301 — than any trainer in Kentucky Downs history dating to when he went 0 for 5 in 2003, according to equineline.com statistics. If Maker runs a lot of horses, he's also said in the past, “You should see all the horses that didn't get in,” referencing Kentucky Downs' tendency to get more entries for a race than the maximum 12 that can start. This meet, Maker estimates that he will enter “75 to 80” horses, or about a third of his stable.

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