Turfway-loving Royal Son heads strong field for return of Kentucky Cup Classic

Headed by horse-forthe-course Royal Son, the Kentucky Cup Classic experiences a revival on the Jeff Ruby Steaks undercard Saturday at Turfway Park.

The Kentucky Cup Classic – won in bygone days by multimillionaires Silver Charm, Perfect Drift, Captain Steve, Hard Spun, and Roses in May – was tabled in 2011, the last year Turfway Park ran a September meet. But now it is back, albeit with a smaller purse of $100,000 and without graded status.

Although not on par with the lineups of long ago, when the race carried a purse of up to $500,000, Saturday’s Kentucky Cup at 1 1/8 miles on Polytrack is a quality stakes race for the purse. The likely favorite is Royal Son, a winner of three of four starts locally, including a last-out victory in the Prairie Bayou Stakes which earned him a 105 Beyer Speed Figure. Other contenders are Chip Leader, Designed for War, Camelot Kitten, and Fast and Accurate, who won what is now called the Jeff Ruby in 2017 when it was named the Spiral.

Royal Son is trained by Kellyn Gorder. Since Gorder took over last fall, Royal Son has run a close third in a turf allowance at Churchill Downs before rattling off two consecutive victories at Turfway.

Royal Son has not raced since the Prairie Bayou on Dec. 29. Gorder had hoped to run Royal Son in an allowance prep for the Kentucky Cup Classic but the race didn’t fill, he said. So, without that race, Gorder sent Royal Son from his Keeneland base to the Turfway strip to work him twice, capped by a bullet five-furlong move in 59 seconds March 7.

“The first time I took him up there to go five-eighths, the clocker didn’t see him, I guess,” he said of a work in late February. “I’m happy with how he is. Can’t wait.”

Dean Sarvis, winning at a 32 percent rate aboard Gordertrained horses in 2017-2018, has a return mount on Royal Son, a 6-year-old Tiznow gelding.

◗ Preceding the Kentucky Cup Classic are two $75,000 stakes, beginning with the Latonia for fillies and mares at a mile (race 6) followed by the Rushaway (race 7) at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds.

Purely a Dream, last year’s Bourbonette winner, makes a return Turfway appearance in the Latonia, while Ontariobred Alternative Route ventures onto synthetic for the first time in a wide-open Rushaway, providing a test for his Queen’s Plate viability this summer at Woodbine.