Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Besschizza hopes to go from the altar to winner’s circle
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Eddie Kenneally has a great wedding gift ready for Adam Beschizza, if only Point Me By will cooperate.
Beschizza, the 29-year-old British-born jockey, was married Monday evening to Jorie Gorski, a racing official on the Kentucky circuit. Friday at Churchill Downs, Kenneally will give Beschizza a leg up on Point Me By, a Grade 1 winner, in the $134,000 feature going 1 1/16 miles on turf.
“It’d be nice to put Adam up on a winner in a race like this,” said Kenneally, who trains Point Me By for Homewrecker Racing. “The horse is doing well and comes off a nice effort.”
Point Me By is part of an oversubscribed lineup of older horses in race 8, the only allowance on a nine-race card that starts at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. The feature goes at 4:22.
Beschizza rode the winner of the last race here Sunday, Elle of the Ball, adding a further degree of joy to the Monday gathering of about 80 family members and friends at the Yew Dell Gardens in nearby Oldham County. Trainer Grant Foster officiated.
To add to his big week, Beschizza will need to work out the right trip from post 3 – and Point Me By will need to work up one of his better efforts. A bay 4-year-old colt with a remarkably consistent pattern of Beyer Speed Figures – all eight of his races have resulted in Beyers ranging from 82 to 89 – Point Me By hit a pinnacle by winning the Grade 1 Bruce D. last summer at Arlington Park. The race previously was known as the Secretariat for more than 40 years.
Point Me By will race with blinkers off after wearing them in his last two starts. The son of Point of Entry forced all the running in his most recent race for these same second-level allowance conditions April 27 at Keeneland before finishing a decent sixth, beaten just two lengths for all the money.
“That was a pretty tough ‘two other than,’ ” said Kenneally, “and this one is equally deep.”
Indeed it is. Monition (post 6, Brian Hernandez Jr.) and Skyro (post 5, Umberto Rispoli), the respective third- and fourthplace finishers in the April 27 race, are among the other top contenders, as is El Kabong (post 7, Corey Lanerie), a sharp last-out winner of a first-level allowance on the Keeneland turf.
In all, 18 are entered, although only as many as 12 can start. As with all non-claiming/starter races on the Kentucky circuit, the listed purse for the Friday feature includes sizable bonuses restricted to registered Kentucky-breds.
Sunshine and a high of 92 are in the Friday forecast.
Rich Strike back to Churchill
Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike was scheduled to arrive Wednesday afternoon at Churchill Downs, where the colt will be stabled for about a week before leaving May 26 for Belmont Park.
Trainer Eric Reed said Rich Strike will breeze for the first time since his historic 80-1 Derby triumph “either Saturday or Sunday, depending on weather” and will remain here until shipping to New York more than two weeks ahead of his next scheduled start in the Belmont Stakes on June 11.
“He really comes alive there at Churchill,” Reed said Tuesday from his Mercury training center on the outskirts of Lexington. “This way, we’ll start getting his mind back on racing. He’s done great at the farm but he kicks it up a notch when he’s at the racetrack.”
Rich Strike, owned by the RED-TR Racing of Rick Dawson, was withheld from the Preakness, marking the first time since Gato Del Sol in 1982 that a Derby winner skipped the Preakness without an extenuating circumstance.
New rider on scene
Mickaëlle Michel, a French jockey with extensive experience on the dirt tracks of Japan, arrived Tuesday in Louisville to begin riding races at Churchill within the next week or so.
Michel, 26, was the 2018 champion apprentice in her native country before moving to Japan, where she gained a sizable following after becoming the first woman to be granted a Japan Racing Association jockey’s license in 2020. She has 187 career wins. Jane Buchanan is her agent.
Lobo hits a ‘Mountain triple’
Trainer Paulo Lobo, who runs longshot Eron Do Jaguarete in the Friday feature, went 3 for 3 on Monday night at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia with Passo a Frente ($4.40), Quari Master ($2.20), and Quicky Desire ($4.60), all for Brownwood Farm.
Lobo, a 53-year-old native of Brazil, remains best known in the United States for winning the 2002 Kentucky Oaks with Farda Amiga for Brazilian-based Jose De Camargo, Old Friends, and Winner Silk.
“Twenty years later, and the owners are still so very happy about it,” Lobo said.