Bauer breaks out of slump with graded stakes win
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Phil Bauer could not have picked a much better setting to win his first race of the year. Bauer is the trainer of Channel Marker, a 6-year-old gelding who rallied for a 10-1 upset in the Grade 3 Jaipur on the Belmont Stakes undercard last Saturday.
“Things had started to weigh on me a little bit,” said Bauer.
Based at Churchill Downs just three barns away from American Pharoah, Bauer, 30, had been blanked for 27 races in a row after he won a Dec. 19 allowance at Fair Grounds with Another Lemon Drop. All his frustration came bounding loose when Channel Marker rolled home a one-length winner in the six-furlong turf race under Francisco Torres, earning a 99 Beyer Speed Figure.
“It was pretty special,” said Bauer, who grew up in Louisville and worked for five years as an assistant to Ken McPeek before going out on his own nearly two years ago. “I had started to question myself a little, but then I knew a lot of good people were behind me. I just decided to put my head down and keep working.”
Channel Marker, claimed for $62,500 here last spring, “is definitely the type of late-running turf sprinter that needs a little more than five furlongs – which is good because the Breeders’ Cup [Turf Sprint] is 5 1/2 furlongs” at Keeneland on Oct. 31. “We’ll work backward from that date and make that our goal.”
Bauer trains privately for Richard and Tammy Rigney, a Louisville couple who were in Bora Bora when the Jaipur was run. Bauer said he has about 18 horses for the Rigneys, including 10 at Churchill.
Gorgeous Bird tests elders
A nine-race Friday card at Churchill will be highlighted by the lone allowance of the afternoon, a $54,000, second-level, seven-furlong race in which Gorgeous Bird will face older horses for the first time.
Trained by Ian Wilkes for owner and breeder Marylou Whitney, Gorgeous Bird will be making his first start since finishing sixth in the April 4 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.
First post is 12:45 p.m. Eastern, with the eighth-race feature set for 4:18.