After amazing turnaround, Curbstone seeks third straight win
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Tom Morley was ready to retire Curbstone last November after the newly gelded son of Street Sense was beaten 38 1/2 lengths in a first-level allowance on turf at Aqueduct.
After all, it was Curbstone’s fourth consecutive dreadful performance and the excuse that the horse didn’t handle the summer heat was no longer in play.
But owner/breeder Patricia Moseley asked Morley – who at that point had only recently taken over the training of Curbstone – to run him once more on the dirt and see if things might be different.
Oh, have things changed.
After two straight blowout wins on dirt, Curbstone seeks his third consecutive victory in a first-level allowance going 1 1/4 miles that serves as the feature on Aqueduct’s nine-race Sunday program.
“It could turn out to be a really good story if he turns out to be a proper [stakes] horse,” Morley said.
Morley said one of the keys to Curbstone’s turnround is the confident manner in which seven-pound apprentice jockey Madison Olver rides him. Two of Olver’s six career wins have come aboard Curbstone.
“He seems to have found a new lease on life,” Morley said. “He certainly looks healthier than he’s ever looked, his weight is fantastic. It’s not easy for a bug rider to ride these two-turn dirt races, but he takes her into the race and she has total confidence that he’ll get to the wire and they’ve made a very good team so far.”
Curbstone’s two wins have come in a $40,000 claimer and a starter allowance, the latter by 12 1/4 lengths. Both races were at 1 1/8 miles. Sunday’s race is at 1 1/4 miles.
“I think he’ll love it,” Morley said. “He’s a little bit like a metronome, he just goes around there clipping off 12-second furlongs the whole way around. We are not going to change our game plan, we will ride him forward out of the gate. If somebody wants to be in front of us that’s fine.”
The 1 1/4 miles is a question mark for the five other runners in this field. Good Skate finished second to Tonal Impact going 1 1/8 miles in his first start off the Mike Maker claim. Bold Victory, trained by Jeffrey Englehart, was fourth in a 1 3/16-mile allowance race in which Tonal Impact and Anejo finished second and third. Both came back to win their next outs.
Mailman’s a Flyer, Union Lights, and Timbuktu complete the field.
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