Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Silver State breezes half-mile; heads to Saratoga on Monday
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Silver State, whose unbeaten streak dating to last fall has made him one of the leading older horses on the continent, has resumed a regular breeze schedule and will be among the Steve Asmussen contingent leaving Churchill Downs on Monday for Saratoga.
A winner of his last six races, most notably the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on the June 5 Belmont Stakes undercard in his latest out, Silver State went an easy half-mile Sunday in 51 seconds at Churchill and will have a similar work this coming Sunday, said Asmussen. The Grade 1 Whitney on Aug. 7 at Saratoga is the next major goal for Silver State, a 4-year-old Hard Spun colt who is the No. 2-ranked horse behind only Mystic Guide in the latest weekly poll conducted by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.
Saratoga starts July 15, with most of the Asmussen horses currently stabled at Churchill set to arrive more than two weeks early, which is customary for his stable. What’s different this year is his Keeneland string will stay put, as opposed to moving over as it usually does to Churchill, where the entire barn area is being vacated for about nine weeks starting July 5 because of the massive turf-course renovation. Asmussen also has maintained a full barn in recent years at Ellis Park, where the summer meet starts Sunday, in addition to his year-round divisions in New York and Texas.
Meanwhile, Asmussen will have plenty of action during the final three-day stretch of the Churchill meet, including two starters in each of the 2-year-old features, the Grade 3 Bashford Manor and Debutante, on the huge closing-day card Saturday. Asmussen has combined to win those races 11 times, including a record six runnings of the Bashford Manor. His starters this year are Red Run and Vodka n Water in the Bashford Manor and Tiz Plenty and Wicked Halo in the Debutante. Both races go at six furlongs.
These are exciting times for Asmussen, a 55-year-old Hall of Famer who is bearing down on the all-time record for career wins by a trainer. He trails only Dale Baird, who died in December 2007 with 9,445 wins. With 9,389 winners through Tuesday, and given his long-established win rate of slightly more than one win per day, Asmussen figures to surpass the record sometime this summer while at Saratoga.
“Just 56 away,” he said. “It’s awesome, some real crazy stuff.”
Bradley has final starter
The fifth race Friday at Churchill will mark the end of the remarkable training career of William “Buff” Bradley, who announced in early May that he is disbanding his stable while intending to keep his hand in the game as an owner-breeder and also hoping to transition to a yet-undetermined role in the racing industry.
Bradley, 57, will saddle Total Impact in the fifth race, a maiden-special turf route for 3-year-olds and upward. Total Impact was ninth at 64-1 in his only prior start, and he’ll be long odds to send Bradley out a winner.
Nonetheless, it’s been an incredible 27-plus years since Bradley ran his first of 575 winners on Nov. 18, 1993, at Churchill Downs. Bradley’s handiwork and dedication made fan favorites out of Brass Hat, Groupie Doll, Divisidero, and The Player, and with a number of circumstances having changed in his life and in the sport itself, he leaves with few regrets.
“It’s kind of sad, yes, but I have had a pretty good run,” he said.
Ellis backstretch filled
With the Churchill Downs backside closing for the summer, the stable areas at numerous other tracks and training centers are being filled to capacity, including at Ellis Park in western Kentucky, where stall vacancies have typically abounded, even during the live meet.
The 31-day summer meet will get under way Sunday with normal attendance guidelines resuming as the pandemic wanes and with Runhappy being the meet’s title sponsor for the second year. Purse levels are projected at an all-time high of about $350,000 per day, with Kentucky Downs granting $4.2 million in purse supplements through an arrangement of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. Sixteen stakes are on tap, with Aug. 7, 8, and 15 being the biggest days. For offtrack viewers, the television signal is now available in high definition.
The normal three-day schedule will run Friday to Sunday, with the only Thursday card of the meet being July 1 during the first week of racing. First post daily is 12:50 p.m. Central. The meet runs through Sept. 4, after which Kentucky Downs will hold its six-day meet (Sept. 5-12).
◗ Don Kolioutos, who became well known to horsemen at tracks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Maryland while working for decades as an investigator for security agencies and in other capacities, died Sunday at age 61 at his home in Union, Ky.