Former OP claimer scores G2 win at Keeneland

Even with Whitmore retired, the Phoenix Stakes at Keeneland had another strong Oaklawn connection.

Special Reserve scored his fourth victory off a $40,000 claim in the Grade 2 $250,000 race Friday on opening day of the fall meeting in Lexington, Ky. Sent off as 6-5 favorite in the field of eight older sprinters, the Midshipman 5-year-old gelding edged second choice Aloha West by a neck after six furlongs in 1:08.54.

Claimed off Randy Morse at Oaklawn Feb. 6, Special Reserve notched his second graded victory following a half-length defeat in Saratoga’s Grade 1 Vanderbilt Handicap July 31. The gelding has never finished worse than second in six starts for current trainer Mike Maker, posting a second Oaklawn victory March 13 and winning a Grade 3 race in Maryland and a listed stakes in Iowa.

Special Reserve, ridden by Joel Rosario, paid $4.40, $2.80 and $2.20. Besides the $150,000 winner’s purse, he received a fees-paid berth to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint next month at Del Mar. Friday’s race marked the first Phoenix since 2016 without Whitmore. One of the most beloved horses ever at Oaklawn, where his seven stakes victories included a record three in the Grade 3 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap, Whitmore won the Phoenix in 2017 and placed second the next two years. Fourth in last year’s race, the then 7-year-old gelding bounced back to win the Grade 1 BC Sprint at Keeneland and was named champion male sprinter. Trainer and co-owner Ron Moquett retired Whitmore after a fifth-place finish in the Forego Aug. 28 at Saratoga, a Grade 1 race the gelding won in 2018.

Later Friday, trainer Brad Cox scored his second Grade 1 Alcibiades victory in three years with Juju’s Map. The 2-yearold Liam’s Map filly, a $300,000 Keeneland sales yearling, Juju’s Map ($6.80) won by 4 1/4 lengths after a mile and one-sixteenth in 1:43.52 under Florent Geroux. Perfect in two starts, the bay filly earned a spot in the BC Juvenile Fillies.

Cox, last year’s Eclipse Award-winning trainer, swept the 2019 Alcibiades and Juvenile Fillies with British Idiom.