Apprentice rider Murrill makes early splash at meet

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Who in the Chicago racing scene before this past winter had heard of Vicente Gudiel, the apprentice rider who arrived at Hawthorne in December and won the riding title there at the winter-spring meet? No one, basically, and now it is happening again – another obscure rider landing on the Chicago circuit and quickly making his mark.

This time, it is a bug boy named Mitchell Murrill, who shifted his tack to Chicago later in the Hawthorne meet after riding in Louisiana, and with a trio of three-day race weeks in the book at this meet, he is neck and neck with none other than Gudiel atop the Arlington jockeys’ standings.

Through last Sunday, Gudiel had ridden 10 winners to nine for Murrill, with Edgar Perez and E.T. Baird at seven wins each.

Gudiel also is an apprentice, but at 30, he is 10 years older than Murrill, an Alabama native who got a high school job working for a Quarter Horse trainer, learned to ride, and – despite no family background in horse racing – launched his career as a Quarter Horse jockey in 2013. In 2014, Murrill switched to Thoroughbreds, riding the Evangeline Downs meet last summer and the Fair Grounds meet this past winter and spring. In April, he came north for the first time with new agent Tim Hanisch.

“I was kind of nervous about the move, but you got to take chances and work hard,” Murrill said. “I’ve been very blessed. I’m very excited and thankful for all the people that have been giving me shots.”

Murrill, riding on a synthetic surface for the first time at Arlington, has found success for various outfits here, though at Hawthorne especially, Louie Roussel kick-started his business.

“It’s been a little challenge to adapt to the Poly, but it’s starting to get a little easier,” said Murrill, who is 5-foot-2 and tacks 108 pounds. “You win a few, and you start to get the feel.”

At Arlington, Murrill has gone 6-4-3 from 37 Polytrack rides and is 3-1-0 from 11 turf mounts. On any surface, he has proved a boon to bettors, producing a $2.86 win return on investment at this meet. But this unexpected success might be hard to maintain as Murrill loses his apprentice allowance at the end of June.

Her Emmynency nears return

The filly Her Emmynency, laid low last fall by colitis, has posted three published workouts at Arlington and is not too far from the first start of her 3-year-old campaign.

Her Emmynency won her career debut at Del Mar, finished a close second there to Sunset Glow in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, and won the Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita in her turf debut. She had the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf as a goal when she contracted colitis and fell gravely ill.

“That’s one of those touch-and-go illnesses that hits them quickly and can be pretty devastating,” said trainer Mike Stidham. “She’s seemed to recover completely from the colitis. We left her in California for about a month, then brought her to Kentucky for some more farm time. We gave her plenty of time to completely recover. She had lost a lot of weight, but she looks great now.”

Stidham said no specific race has been picked out for Her Emmynency, who is eligible for a second-level allowance, but he plans to include her in the group of horses he’ll send to Del Mar this summer. Stidham launched a successful Del Mar invasion last year with about a dozen horses and plans to have twice that number this year.

Among the Del Mar hopefuls could be Istanford, who won the Grade 2 San Clemente on the Del Mar grass course last summer. Istanford ran well in her first start this season at Fair Grounds, but after finishing fourth as the favorite in the $100,000 Dahlia last month at Pimlico, she was sent out for a one-month freshening with an eye toward Del Mar stakes races.

Pair of allowances highlights card

A pair of second-level allowance races with $40,000 claiming options (races 2 and 7) are the highest-class fare on Sunday’s card.

Race 2, at six furlongs on Polytrack, drew just six entrants, none of whom appears especially well suited to the spot. Trainer Ingrid Mason has started the meet with four wins and three seconds from nine starters, and Wild Target stands a strong chance of far exceeding the tame performance he delivered April 25 at Churchill.

Bella Ann is the choice in race 7, carded for seven furlongs on the main track and restricted to females. The versatile mare can deliver representative efforts on turf, dirt, and synthetic and has proven effective in both sprints and routes. She enters in good form and is placed realistically by trainer Hugh Robertson.

Sydneyrella ran far below her best form in a pair of Hawthorne dirt starts but has won half her 12 races over the Arlington Polytrack and could show sharp improvement Sunday.