Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Something Awesome surging
The top three finishers and beaten favorite Diversify were all doing well Sunday morning following Saturday’s $1.2 million Charles Town Classic.
Something Awesome defeated War Story by a neck under Hall of Famer rider Edgar Prado in the 1 1/8-mile Classic, with the late-running Fear the Cowboy a length farther back in third. Diversify dropped back through the field following a little more than six furlongs and finished last, with jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. protecting him after it was clear he had no more to give.
Something Awesome, 7, has won five of six races since being transferred to Laurel Parkbased horseman Jose Corrales and switching from the Tapeta surface at Woodbine to dirt. In his last three starts, he has won the Grade 3 General George around one turn, the Harrison Johnson Memorial around two turns, and the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic around three turns. He earned a career best 101 Beyer Speed Figure in the Classic, the fourth straight race he has set a career-top Beyer.
Corrales said Something Awesome was on the top of his game Sunday morning and would be pointed to the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special, a 1 3/16-mile race May 18.
“He’s doing great; he wants to run again tomorrow,” Corrales said. “I drove him back to Laurel myself. He ate good. He’s got everything going on this morning.”
Corrales, 58, is a native of Panama. He rode 1,031 winners as a jockey between 1981 and 1993, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, and has sent out 365 winners as a trainer since 1991.
Something Awesome gave him his first graded stakes win as a rider or trainer in the General George in February. The Classic was by far his richest win.
“It hasn’t really sunk in that we won the race,” Corrales said. “People tried to congratulate me this morning, but I hid. I had to get up early and come to work like everybody else. It’s seven days.”
Something Awesome, a son of Awesome Again, was bred and is owned by Frank and Andy Stronach, who have a long association with Corrales.
War Story, Delta Bluesman, and Shaft of Light all came out of their Saturday races at Charles Town “excellent,” according to trainer Jorge Navarro, and will be based at Monmouth Park this summer. Delta Bluesman won the Caixa Eletronica, and Shaft of Light scored a repeat victory in the Russell Road.
War Story ran a strong race in the Classic, but it was a tough defeat for Navarro. War Story finished third, beaten two necks, in the race a year ago, and Saturday’s narrow loss came three weeks after his top sprinter X Y Jet finished second, beaten a head, in the $2 million Golden Shaheen in Dubai.
“We just have to turn the page and get him ready for the next one,” Navarro said.
War Story’s Saturday race was amazingly similar to last year. He ended up battling between rivals in the stretch both times.
“He was in a perfect spot, he just hates to have a horse outside him, where the winner was,” Navarro said. “I wish we would have been outside. I think he would have won.”
Navarro said War Story would be pointed to the Grade 2, $400,000 Brooklyn, a 1 1/2-mile race at Belmont Park that he won last year in his start following the Charles Town Classic.
Trainer Efren Loza Jr. was pleased with Fear the Cowboy’s Classic effort. He raced inside Something Awesome and War Story on the backstretch but ran up behind the tiring Diversify at the five-sixteenths pole and had to steady briefly, losing position.
“He always tries hard,” Loza said. “He didn’t have the space at the five-sixteenths pole, and that cost him two or three lengths.”
Fear the Cowboy will head back to the Oakridge Training Center in Ocala, Fla. Loza was not certain where his 6-yearold earner of $1.7 million would start next. He said he would consider the Pimlico Special, but that the race comes up a little quick with all of the shipping his horse would have to do.
“He came out of it really good,” Loza said of the Classic. “We’ll take him back to Florida, give him a week off and see how he is doing.
“He’s the type of horse I don’t want to give a long layoff. It would be tough to get him back to where he is now. I like to breeze him every 15 days, and that’s what he wants to do, too.”
Diversify set a reasonable pace of 24.34 seconds, 48.48, and 1:13.16 in the Classic while under light pressure from Afleet Willy, but failed to respond when asked by Ortiz and quickly dropped back. He was beaten 26 lengths while being eased through the stretch.
Trainer Rick Violette said Sunday morning that Diversify came out of the Classic in good shape physically and that he would monitor him over the next few days and “go over him with a fine-toothed comb” to make sure everything is okay.
“It’s baffling to me,” Violette said. “He pulled up great and jogged back to be unsaddled with his toes out. He scoped clean.”
The Classic was the first start for Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Diversify since November.
“Irad said he wanted to go ahead and open up, but all of a sudden he went from a lot of horse to no horse,” Violette said. “He handled the turns fine. The third turn might have just gotten to him. It looked like he may have surrendered. He’s got a little of that in him.”