Game Winner prevails with late charge
Baffert-trained colt earns status as early favorite for Kentucky Derby with win
LOUISVILLE, KY. — Game Winner surged down the stretch and pulled away from Knicks Go after a bump to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by 21⁄ lengths Friday at Churchill Downs, giving trainer Bob Baffert an early Kentucky Derby favorite just five months after winning his second Triple Crown with Justify.
The race favorite broke from the No. 9 post and lagged in the middle of the 14-horse field before pushing forward on the outside and into contention at the top of the stretch. GameWinner and Knicks Gobrushed before the colt got away for the win to improve to 4-0 lifetime. Signalman was a length back in third.
“He likes Churchill Downs, and that’s a good sign,” Baffert told NBCSN. The thrilling finish in the $2 million, Grade 1 race capped a first day devoted to 2-year-olds at the season- ending world championships. Game Winner also emerged as one of the year’s top Juveniles.
Ridden by Joel Rosario, Game Winner covered11⁄ miles in1:43.67 and paid $4, $3.20 and $2.80. Knicks Go returned $21.40 and $11.20, and Signalman paid $15.80.
Said Rosario, “I just wanted to put him in the right spot he wanted to be.”
Game Winner’s victory provided some irony for Baffert, who didn’t race Justify as a 2-year-old but struck gold last spring when the colt went on to become racing’s 13th Triple Crown winner. An ankle issue forced Justify to retire unbeaten in July, leaving Saturday’s marquee Breeders’ Cup Classic without the sport’s most notable horse.
Going forward, Game Winner just threw his name in the mix as the next possible star.
His victory comes just over a month since winning the Grade 1 American Pharoah, named for the 2015 Triple Crown winner that Baffert also trained. This one required more work before 42,249 on a cold, overcast day on a track that was fast after two days of heavy rain.
It ended with Baffert’s fourth Juvenile victory and 15th Breeders’ Cup overall. Other Breeders’ Cup first-day winners: Line of Duty survived a lengthy postrace Today, noon TV: NBCSN (1 p.m.); chs. 11, 4 (3:30 p.m.) Joel Rosario rides Game Winner to victory in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile for 2-year-olds at Churchill Downs on Friday afternoon. review before stewards upheld his halflength victory over Uncle Benny in the $1 million Juvenile Turf. Line of Duty charged from outside down the stretch to pass Somelikeithotbrown and hold off Uncle Benny in a three-wide ending, giving the Irish colt his third consecutive win after two seconds. Trainer Charlie Appleby earned his third Breeders’ Cup win, following last year’s victory with Wuheida in the Filly and Mare Turf.
Jaywalk went wire to wire to win the $2 million Fillies, leaving the field behind down the stretch for a 51⁄ length margin.
Newspaperofrecord rolled to another dominant victory, pulling away down the stretch for a 63⁄ length win over East in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf. The Irish bred paid $3.20, $2.60 and $2.40 and improved to 3-0 lifetime, winning each time by at least six lengths.
Bulletin opened the Breeders’ Cup by pulling away to a 23⁄ length victory over Chelsea Cloisters in the $1 million inaugural Juvenile Turf Sprint, earning a graded stakes win in just his second career start. Ridden by Javier Castellano, the Todd Pletcher-trained colt covered 51⁄ furlongs in 1:05.54 and gave Justify co-owners Winstar Farm and China Horse Farm another significant win six months after winning the Derby. Classic chance: For Jonathan Thomas, it was always about the horses. Growing up on one of Virginia’s iconic thoroughbred breeding farms, where his grandfather and his parents were employed in the racing operation, young Jonathan inevitably gravitated in full gallop to the equine side of life.
On Saturday, Thomas’s considerable talents will be on full display at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Catholic Boy, the racehorse he has trained since he spotted him at a Kentucky auction in January 2016, will be in a stellar field of 14 for the Breeders Cup Classic. The $6 million race is as coveted as any jewel in the Triple Crown series.
Catholic Boy’s stunning four-length victory in the $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August elevated the profile of Thomas, 38. The victory qualified Catholic Boy for the Classic, where the 3-year-old bay son of More Than Ready out of Song Of Bernadette is an early 6-to-1 betting choice. Catholic Boy has won six of nine career starts and $1.8 million.
Thomas’s path from a childhood living at philanthropist Paul Mellon’s sprawling Rokeby Farm in Upperville, Va., to today’s race has taken some remarkable turns, including a near-catastrophic injury that left him partially paralyzed for a year and eventually ended his steeplechase riding career.
Thomas, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., grew up in northern Virginia. His parents, Melissa Young, a FEMA executive, and John Dale Thomas, a longtime course manager at Virginia race tracks, long ago forgave him for skipping his high school graduation in order to ride in Ireland.
“I’d finished all my courses and had enough credits to graduate,” Thomas said recently. “I had an opportunity to ride over there and decided to go. I’ve been very lucky. I always knew my calling and that it was going to be around horses. It’s worked out pretty well.” It almost didn’t. In 2000, he was in a jump-race at Colonial Downs when his horse awkwardly hit a fence and Thomas went down hard with a compression fracture of several vertebrae. He was paralyzed from the waist down for a year.
There was major surgery, two months at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, and another long stretch in rehabilitation. He made steady progress until, he said, “it all came back, but very slowly.”