Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Magical will miss BC with a temperature
An intriguing showdown between Sistercharlie and Magical will not take place in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf as Magical was diagnosed with a temperature Monday morning and did not ship to California.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien told The Racing Post that Magical would be retired.
“She has been an unbelievable mare,” O’Brien told the publication. “She was so game, so consistent, and so classy.”
Magical, a daughter of Galileo, was a three-time Group 1 winner, including a victory in the Champion Stakes at Ascot on Oct. 19. She was pre-entered in both the Filly and Mare Turf and the Turf. Though she finished second to Enable in the Breeders’ Cup Turf last year, Magical was expected to run in the Filly and Mare Turf on Saturday.
Magical retires with a record of 9-6-0 from 21 starts and earnings of $4,321,653, all for the Coolmore connections of Derrick Smith, Susan Magnier and Michael Tabor.
Magical would likely have vied for favoritism in the Filly and Mare Turf with Sistercharlie, last year’s winner of this race and the reigning female turf champion.
O’Brien was expected to enter both Fleeting and Just Wonderful in the Filly and Mare Turf.
– David Grening
McKinzie goes ‘just right’
McKinzie in his final work on Monday for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday at Santa Anita was timed by Daily Racing Form’s Mike Welsch in 1:00.94 for five furlongs, after which his trainer, Bob Baffert, let out an audible sigh of relief.
“I can relax now,” Baffert said. “These works are so important. He was really smooth. It went just right. No excuses. He’s as ready as I can get him.”
McKinzie will be ridden for the first time in the Classic by Joel Rosario. J.C. Diaz was aboard for the work on Monday, a late change owing to Baffert wanting to be in contact with Diaz via radio during the drill.
“He’s used to the radio. I wanted a guy with a radio,” Baffert said.
After Diaz jogged back with McKinzie after the drill, Baffert called out to him from the track apron.
“Perfecto,” Diaz said. McKinzie has raced twice at the Classic distance of 1 1/4 miles. He was 12th in last year’s Classic at Churchill Downs, and was narrowly beaten earlier this year in the Santa Anita Handicap.
– Jay Privman
Code of Honor takes it slow
Code of Honor’s final work for the Breeders’ Cup Classic was not exactly what trainer Shug McGaughey wanted.
Code of Honor breezed a halfmile in 53.80 seconds Sunday morning over Belmont Park’s main track, his final move before Saturday’s $6 million Classic at Santa Anita for which he figures to be one of the favorites. With rain in the forecast Sunday morning, the main track was sealed for training,
Shortly after 7 a.m. and just as heavy rain began to fall, Code of Honor went an opening quarter in 27.58 seconds and the second quarter in 26.22 under exercise rider Lexi Peaden. Code of Honor galloped out five furlongs in 1:07.15 and six furlongs in 1:20.13.
“I overcompensated on the track,” McGaughey said. “It’s my fault. I told her just to hold him together and go a half-mile. She just overcompensated, but that’s my fault.”
McGaughey said Code of Honor cooled out fine back at the barn. He is scheduled to ship to Southern California on Monday.
Sunday’s work came six days after Code of Honor worked five furlongs in 1:00.26 over a sealed, sloppy racetrack. In that work, he galloped out a mile in 1:39.40.
“Fitness-wise I don’t think I needed to do much,” McGaughey said. “He’s coming off two mileand-a-quarter races.”
Code of Honor, a son of Noble Mission owned by William S. Farish, has won his three most recent starts: the Grade 3 Dwyer in July, the Grade 1 Travers in August, and the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, via the disqualification of Vino Rosso, on Sept. 28. The Travers and Jockey Club were both at 1 1/4 miles.
– David Grening
Sisterson has plan for Bandua
In an ideal scenario, Bandua will stalk the pace for the first mile of Saturday’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf under jockey Tyler Gaffalione before moving closer to the front.
“He’ll have his head in front and be there or thereabouts and give us some excitement,” trainer Jack Sisterson said on Sunday.
Bandua followed that style to win his first stakes in the Grade 3 Arlington Handicap at 1 3/16 miles at Arlington Park on July 13. A month later, Bandua set the pace in the Arlington Million and was beaten 1 3/4 lengths by Bricks and Mortar, the expected favorite in the BC Turf at 1 1/2 miles.
Sisterson, who trains the 4-year-old Bandua for Calumet Farm, knows the BC Turf will be a stern test for Bandua, who has won 3 of 14 starts racing in Ireland and the United States.
With the local stakes winner Acclimate expected to set the pace, Bandua is likely to be positioned as a stalker.
“We won’t be looking to duel with him,” Sisterson said. “We can sit behind. If he runs his race, he’ll be competitive.”
Bandua will also be a price. He was eighth, beaten two lengths, in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 5, closing from third to dispute the lead in the stretch before fading.
“It was a stepping-stone to know Bandua that much better,” Sisterson said. “We won’t run him at a mile anymore. We know him a little better coming out of that race.”
Gaffalione rode Bandua to a sixth-place finish in the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes at Belmont Park in June. He takes the mount from Adam Beschizza, who injured his collarbone in a spill at Keeneland in early October.
–Steve Andersen
Walsh wearing many hats
Brendan Walsh was born and raised in Ireland and first started working for English and Irish trainers. Over there, things generally are much different for stable workers than they are here. Walsh would not only ride horses in the morning, he was responsible for all aspects of their care – cleaning stalls, feeding, grooming.
Walsh came Saturday to Santa Anita from Kentucky to meet two horses he trains who both look like very live chances in Friday Breeders’ Cup races – Maxfield in the Juvenile and Vitalogy in the Juvenile Turf. Yet within that superficially high-profile presence, Walsh was going back to his roots. His stable is in flux this weekend, horses being shifted around in Kentucky and some moved to winter quarters at Fair Grounds. With his staff tied up in organizing that process, Walsh came to Santa Anita on a solo mission. He met the horses himself and solely was their caretaker Saturday and Sunday.
“This is the stuff I really like, actually,” Walsh said after setting the feed for Vitalogy, who trained after Maxfield. Walsh bathed and cooled out the two horses himself following routine (but successful) gallops on Saturday at Santa Anita. With no rider yet in town, Walsh enlisted Roger Horgan, who works for Kiaran McLaughlin and has been riding Filly and Mare Sprint contender Dawn the Destroyer here in recent days to get on his horses Sunday.
“Both of them were really good,” Horgan said.
Walsh describes the colts as “180-degree opposites.” Maxfield, winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity last out, already is a mountain of a horse, standing, by Walsh’s estimation, 16 hands 3. Walsh assumes he’ll grow to be 17 hands but Maxfield “is light on his feet, really athletic.” Horgan said it took less than a furlong for him to feel the powerful beast beneath him.
Vitalogy is smaller than Maxfield over every part of his
body, but he’s not especially small and is very well put together and athletic. Horgan said Vitalogy was really bouncing over the Santa Anita dirt track despite being a turf horse.
Walsh took over Vitalogy’s training from Ireland-based Joseph O’Brien. In O’Brien’s care, Vitalogy won a maiden race making his career debut at Naas, was third in the Grade 3 Acomb Stakes over a lefthanded seven furlongs Aug. 21 at York, and finished a closing third in the Grade 1 Summer Stakes at Woodbine. For Walsh, Vitalogy finished second by a neck to Juvenile Turf starter Peace Achieved in the Bourbon Stakes Oct. 6 at Keeneland despite a very challenging trip after breaking from post 14.
“Javier [Castellano] said that even if he’d just had the 10-hole he thought he’d have won,” Walsh said.
Vitalogy came to Walsh with the reputation of a horse that might pull too hard in his training and racing, but quickly and smoothly made the change from bucolic training in Ireland to the more claustrophobic regimen of an American racehorse. Indeed, both Maxfield and Vitalogy ate with gusto and presented coats glowing with health.
It was their trainer himself who shined them up Sunday.
– Marcus Hersh
Hog Creek Hustle’s team ready
Hog Creek Hustle fits the underdog role well. After winning the Grade 1 Woody Stephens at Belmont Park at 18-1, the Overanalyze colt missed winning the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens at Saratoga by a few inches, this time at 10-1.
Hog Creek Hustle will start Saturday in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita as one of the longest shots in the field, which will only serve to reinforce the resolve of his connections to stun the racing world. Patty Tipton and Stewart Smith and five other partners who campaign the dark bay colt under their Something Special Racing banner are relishing the fight ahead.
“We aim to win it,” said Tipton, a Lexington, Ky., entrepreneur who oversees the partnership.
Tipton and Vickie Foley, the trainer of Hog Creek Hustle, have been close friends for the better part of the last 25 years. Tipton grew up in the rural environs of south Montgomery County, Ky., in what is informally known as Hog Creek.
“It’s so small, probably not even 100 people, that there’s not really a town, just an area,” said Tipton.
Foley has been in racing her entire life. Her father, the late Dravo Foley, began training horses in the late 1950s, and both Vickie and her brother, trainer Greg Foley, grew up kicking around their dad’s shed row at Churchill Downs and other Kentucky tracks.
As their first-ever Grade 1 winner, Hog Creek Hustle has been a breakthrough horse for both owner and trainer. Purchased for $150,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale, the colt has been a stretch runner from the very beginning, winning his August 2018 debut, a five-furlong race at Ellis Park, from well off the pace.
Over time, after trying Hog Creek Hustle in several twoturn races, including the Fair Grounds series of Kentucky Derby preps, Foley realized the colt packed a stronger punch in shorter events. A runner-up finish behind Mr. Money in the Pat Day Mile was followed by his Woody Stephens triumph, then the Jerkens, with both New York races coming at seven furlongs. His lone subsequent start, and his first versus older horses, resulted in a fifth-place finish in the six-furlong Phoenix at Keeneland – and therein lies the rub that will exclude Hog Creek Hustle from the core of favorites Saturday, even with Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith riding.
Tipton and Foley were betwixt and between when trying to decide whether to run in the six-furlong Sprint or the Dirt Mile, which, unlike at some other tracks, is run around two turns at Santa Anita.
“He’s never proven that two turns is his best,” said Foley. “Seven-eighths would’ve been perfect for us, but you can’t have everything. If he gets enough pace up front, he’s going to have that kick. Now, they may not stop, but he’s going to make his run.”
Hog Creek Hustle has struck a favorable impression with onlookers with his training and demeanor since arriving here late last week from Churchill. He’ll need more than just that, however – he’ll need racing luck and an alltime best effort to threaten the likes of Mitole and Imperial Hint in what shapes up as a terrific renewal of the Sprint. Tipton is a believer.
“They said we couldn’t do it before,” she said. “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong again.”
– Marty McGee