Arnold brings A Team to Winning Colors
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s been a productive last six weeks for trainer Rusty Arnold. Since April 13, his stable has won a combined nine races at Keeneland and Churchill Downs, all but one of them an allowance or stakes.
The good times can continue Saturday when Arnold sends out the uncoupled duo of Awestruck and Annathela in the Churchill feature, the 16th running of the Grade 3, $100,000 Winning Colors. Either mare appears capable of victory in what shapes up as a very well-matched field of 12 fillies and mares going six furlongs.
“There’s not a horse that really stands out in there,” said Arnold, who teamed with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. to win the 2018 Winning Colors with Miss Kentucky. “It looks pretty competitive all the way around.”
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Awestruck, with Hernandez riding from post 9, may have the edge returning from an allowance victory on the May 3 Kentucky Oaks undercard.
“She’s really come around,” said Arnold, adding that owner G. Watts Humphrey Jr. “made a big decision to race her at 5, and it’d be great to reward him by making her a graded stakes winner.”
Annathela (post 2, James Graham) will be making her first start in more than six months, “but she really likes it at Churchill,” said Arnold, noting her 10-3-4-1 local record.
“It’s tough coming off a layoff like she is, but I’ve had her ready to go for a while now. Her races just haven’t filled. I do like the way she’s training.”
The main challengers to the Arnold pair include Let It Ride Mom (post 7, Tyler Gaffalione), a stakes-seasoned mare who returns from a six-month layoff after having raced primarily on turf or synthetics; Astrollinthepark (post 8, Gabriel Saez), winner of the Roxelana here last June for Larry Jones; Classy Act (post 4, Adam Beschizza), regrouped with nine workouts since early March by Bret Calhoun; and the uncoupled Buff Bradley duo of Upset Brewing (post 3, Edgar Morales) and Divine Queen (post 6, Calvin Borel).
One of the more intriguing runners in the Winning Colors is Honey Bunny (post 11, Tyler Baze), who has won her last four starts, all in easier, starter-allowance company.
The Winning Colors, named for the Hall of Fame filly who won the 1988 Kentucky Derby, goes as the 10th of 11 races on a Saturday card that begins at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. Post time for the feature is 5:26.
Gaining favored in Keertana
Earlier Saturday, six fillies and mares will contest the $100,000 Keertana (race 4, 2:13), a 1 1/2-mile turf race in which Gaining, a 5-year-old Juddmonte Farms homebred, surely will be a stout favorite.
Trained by Brad Cox, Gaining was a fast-closing second behind Ickymasho when bet down to favoritism in her North American debut last month in the Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland. Ickymasho wheeled back as an easy winner of the Searching last Saturday on the Preakness card at Pimlico.
“Obviously, we’re hoping she’ll move up off that race, seeing that it was her first start in over five months,” Cox said.
Gaining, with Florent Geroux to ride, will break from post 2. The top threats are Gentle Ruler, a last-out winner for Ian Wilkes, as well as Over Thinking and Peru.