With 90 Beyer, Jas may have found a calling on dirt, and his way on Road to the Derby
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On the Beyer Speed Figures, at least, Jas showed Sunday at Churchill Downs that he’s a faster horse on dirt than turf. This is a good time of year to make that discovery with a 2-year-old colt.
Jas turned away a very well-meant Staunch and won the Grade 3, $200,000 Street Sense by a neck, running 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:43.99, which translated to 90 Beyer, five points higher than Jas’s top figure from three turf races.
Jas, as you would imagine, will stick to dirt racing for now. Steve Asmussen, who trains the colt for Red Lane Thoroughbreds, spent the early part of Monday morning at Keeneland before driving to Churchill Downs, in part to have a next-day look at the Street Sense winner. Jas came out of his race in good order, Asmussen said. Next up is the Grade 2, $400,000 Kentucky Jockey Club on Nov. 28.
Jas is by Justify and out of the Giant’s Causeway mare Flag Day, and Asmussen trained Jas’s brother Hall of Fame, winner of the Grade 3 Mineshaft on Fair Grounds’s main track. So, even while running the horse once on the Ellis Park grass course and twice at all-turf Kentucky Downs, Asmussen had a surface switch floating around his brain.
“He’d trained very well at Churchill,” Asmussen said.
Jas has a tall, lanky body he’ll grow into, and the long stride of a true route horse. Asmussen noted, though, that Jas gets out of the gate quickly and puts himself in a forward position: Sunday, he raced second behind pacesetting Card Man, showing his stamina by turning away a sustained bid from Staunch.
“He’s very athletic,” Asmussen said.
Good on turf, perhaps better on dirt – and Kentucky Derby prep season already is underway.
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