Curlin’s Approval eyes repeat

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Fog largely obscured Restless Rider in the early morning training hours Nov. 17 at Churchill Downs, preventing clockers from timing her workout, but there will be no missing her presence Saturday beneath the twin spires as the headliner for Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Golden Rod.

The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up, she is by far the most established of the eight fillies entered in the 1 1/16-mile Golden Rod, so much so that her $741,360 in earnings exceed the collective bankrolls of her seven rivals. She also is the race’s lone stakes winner, having won two – the Debutante at Churchill Downs on June 30 and the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland on Oct. 5.

Although her rivals are mostly short on stakes experience, they do not appear short on potential. Five foes – Gold Credit, Champagne Anyone, Liora, Princess Causeway, and Break Curfew – enter the race off a victory, in either maiden or allowance company, while the other two, High Regard and Reflect, exit stakes races.

Break Curfew and Champagne Anyone should be among the most popular alternatives to Restless Rider at the betting windows. Break Curfew appears the controlling speed after a wire-to-wire victory Oct. 24 in a sprint at Belmont, while Champagne Anyone has won 2 of 3 races, including a mile allowance Oct. 10 at Keeneland in which she defeated Oxy Lady, a next-out winner of the Grade 3 Tempted at Aqueduct.

Still, the favorite – made 7-5 on Mike Battaglia’s morning line – is Restless Rider, who chased victorious Jaywalk in vain in the Nov. 2 Juvenile Fillies, finishing 5 1/2 lengths behind that pacesetting rival, but ahead of such promising runners as Vibrance and Bellafina.

“We were hoping the pace would unfold a little bit differently,” trainer Ken McPeek said of an early duel that many expected but never materialized.

Restless Rider is a two-time winner at Churchill. She is 2-year-old daughter of Distorted Humor owned by Three Chimneys Farm and Fern Circle Stables.

Although clockers were unable to time her in her final Golden Rod morning tuneup, her regular rider, Brian Hernandez Jr., was able to clock her for a half-mile, glancing at his watch while breezing her.

“She’s a fast filly, I guess is the best way to put it,” he said. “Working her, you feel like you’re going nowhere, and you look down and you see she worked in 48 and 1, cruising, doing it like a good horse is supposed to.”

The Golden Rod offers Kentucky Oaks qualifying points on a 10-4-2-1 scale. With her Alcibiades win and Juvenile Fillies runner-up finish, Restless Rider already has 18 points, second behind Jaywalk with 30.