Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
McCraken targets Met Mile
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – McCraken will make his next start in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Mile after exiting a flashy Kentucky Derby Day allowance victory at Churchill Downs in good order.
Making his first start in more than six months, McCraken swept from last to first in the one-mile allowance and earned a 95 Beyer Speed Figure, tying a career high. Trainer Ian Wilkes is intent on more races at or around a mile in hoping the 4-year-old colt will prove worthy of a berth in the Nov. 3 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill.
“He’s a happy horse right now,” Wilkes said. “He’s back to training and doing very well.”
The $1.2 million Met Mile is part of the June 9 Belmont Stakes card.
McCraken, bred and owned by Whitham Thoroughbreds, was one of the more highly regarded 3-year-olds of 2017 before ending his season with a seventh in the Travers and a distant third in the Fayette.
Wilkes, in the meantime, is off to a terrific start at the 38-day Churchill spring meet. Besides McCraken, he also won the Opening Verse on May 3 with Mr Cub, who runs back here in the Grade 2 Wise Dan on the June 16 Stephen Foster card. Through Sunday, Wilkes led the meet standings with seven wins.
Turf sprints at 5 1/2
Since Churchill first began running turf races in 1987, all sprints over the turf course have been at five furlongs. That’s about to change, as the first 5 1/2-furlong turf race will be run here Thursday as the seventh and featured race.
Adjustments have been made by Churchill so that the starting gate can be stationed just a few yards outside of the 5 1/2-furlong pole for such races. Part of prior reluctance to run the longer distance was that a crown on the outer edge of the course came into play. Churchill racing secretary Ben Huffman said most turf sprints going forward will be at 5 1/2 furlongs, and in fact another has been carded as race 6 Friday.
The impetus for the change came from officials at the Breeders’ Cup, which asked whether the BC Turf Sprint could be lengthened. The 35th Breeders’ Cup will be held here Nov. 2-3.
Victory to Victory, winner of the Grade 1 Natalma in September 2016, is among field of 11 fillies and mares in the Thursday feature, a $57,000 secondlevel allowance that has Gagaoveryou as a 2-1 morning-line favorite. First post is 5 p.m. Eastern, with the feature going at 7:54.
The jackpot for the 20-cent Single 6, which spans races 3 to 8, stands at $419,279 for Thursday.
Proctor’s Ledge to Just a Game
Trainer Brendan Walsh said that Proctor’s Ledge, winner of the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile on the Derby undercard, likely will make her next start in the Grade 1 Just a Game on the June 9 Belmont Stakes undercard, with the Diana at Saratoga being a longer-term objective.
Walsh also reaffirmed that Beckford, winner of the opening-night William Walker, will run next in the Group 1 Commonwealth on June 22 at Royal Ascot. Killay, a sharp allowance winner on the May 4 Kentucky Oaks undercard, likely will run back in another allowance, said Walsh.
Camacho gets three days
Starting Saturday, jockey Samuel Camacho Jr. will serve a three-day suspension handed him by the Churchill stewards for causing severe crowding aboard Ivy’s College Fund in the third race here last Saturday. The incident forced Corey Lanerie, riding Arcelor, to take up very sharply along the rail.
Ivy’s College Fund was disqualified from first to third, while Arcelor was elevated from third to second. Compose, otherwise uninvolved, was elevated to the victory.
Lanerie rode five other winners on the card and may well have been denied a sixth when Arcelor lost all her momentum.
Patterson with first starter
Jenn Patterson, a longtime exercise rider and assistant under top trainers Shug McGaughey and Charlie LoPresti, will have the first starter of her training career when she saddles Sports Story in the sixth race here Thursday evening.
Patterson, who grew up in Delaware, worked closely with such stars as Orb and Wise Dan prior to announcing last month she was opening a public stable.
Sports Story, an unraced 4-year-old colt by Tale of the Cat, is owned by Harry Rosenblum.
2012 star in action Thursday
Circle Unbroken, who won the Bashford Manor Stakes here nearly six years ago, is back in the entries, in for a $5,000 claiming tag in the last race Thursday.
This will be the 31st start for Circle Unbroken, an 8-year-old Florida-bred gelding with earnings of $195,716. Trained from the outset by Garry Simms until being claimed here last fall for $16,000, Circle Unbroken won the Bashford Manor in his second start on June 30, 2012.
◗ Probable starters for the Grade 3, $100,000 Louisville Handicap on Saturday include at least two for Mike Maker, who trains nine of the 22 older horses nominated to the 1 1/2-mile turf race. Entries for the Louisville, the lone stakes here this weekend, were to be drawn Wednesday.
◗ Eskimo Kisses, a solid fourth in the Kentucky Oaks after finishing second in the Grade 1 Ashland, is getting a short break and will be pointed to major races such as the Coaching Club American Oaks or Alabama, trainer Kenny McPeek said.
◗ The composition of the horse population in the Churchill stable area has undergone its usual post-Derby turnover, according to track stall superintendent Steve Hargrave. About 75 to 100 horses have moved in, taking the place of those that departed after the Derby.