Clark Handicap tops holiday stakes
Despite a less-than-advantageous spot on the calendar – three weeks after the Breeders’ Cup, when most top horses are done for the year – the Clark Handicap has managed to hang onto its Grade 1 rating. Recent winners of the $500,000 event for older horses, which will be run today for the 144th time, include eventual horses of the year Wise Dan and Gun Runner, as well as additional Eclipse Award winners Blame and Will Take Charge.
Morning-line favorite Seeking the Soul (8-5), who upset last year’s Clark at 7-1, is the only Grade 1 winner in this year’s field. The 5-year-old horse has won only once in six starts since (the one-mile Ack Ack on Sept. 29) but is coming off a second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Churchill Downs also appears to be his favorite track.
Prime Attraction figures to draw a lot of support at 3-1, despite being without a graded win in 2018. The 5-year-old son of Unbridled’s Song has acquitted himself well in all but one of this year’s half-dozen starts, finishing behind likely HOY Accelerate in four of them. There are
no Accelerates in today’s Clark field.
The late-developing Leofric is also pegged at 3-1. The 5-year-old son of Candy Ride didn’t win his first stakes until taking the West Virginia Governor’s Stakes (G3) in early August. In two starts since, Leofric finished a decent third behind Yoshida and Gunnevera in the Whitney (G1) before being nipped by Prime Attraction in the Fayette Stakes (G2).
After coming up short in seven straight Grade 1s, Bravazo (9-2) has a last chance to score at the Grade 1 level this year in the Clark. The hard-trying 3-year-old hit the board in four of those races – the Preakness, Haskell, Travers and BC Mile – and may well be overlooked in this spot.
Hence (12-1), Hawaakom (15-1) and 30-1 outliers Storm Advisory and Sightforsoreyes round out the eight-horse field.
Mucho Macho Man gets first stakes winner
After tail-male descendants of Mr. Prospector and Northern Dancer, as usual, swept most of the year’s 2-year-old graded races, a new name turned up last weekend when Mucho Gusto, a son of 2013 BC Classic winner Mucho Macho Man, won the Bob Hope Stakes (G3) at Del Mar. Sent off as the odds-on favorite, the Bob Baffert trainee showed grit by turning back the bids of two rivals in mid-stretch, edging away late to win by 1½ lengths.
Mucho Gusto first sold for a bargain-basement $14,000 as a yearling. Three auctions later, after working two furlongs in a sizzling 21.1 seconds, he brought a hefty $650,000 at Timonium’s 2-year-olds in training sale last May.
The male line of Mucho Gusto, which traces to 1898 Kentucky Derby winner Plaudit, has been hanging on by a thread. Prominent runners from the line in recent decades include alltime greats Dr. Fager and Holy Bull, whose champion son Macho Uno is the grand-sire of Mucho Gusto.
Time will tell if Mucho Gusto turns out to be a serious racehorse or if Mucho Macho Man, despite limited opportunities at stud, manages to become a successful sire. In the meantime, any genetic variety that can be stirred into today’s increasingly homogenous mix has to be considered a good thing.