Behold de Buy gets blinkers for Kip Deville Stakes

Behold de Buy and Smiles Ahead will be adding blinkers for different reasons Friday night in the $50,000 Kip Deville at Remington Park.

The six-furlong race for 2-year-olds is the first leg of a new juvenile series at Remington that culminates with the $250,000 Springboard Mile on Dec. 11. The Kip Deville also serves as the first of six stakes to be run at the track this weekend, with the highlight being the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sunday.

Behold de Buy will be adding blinkers following his last-to-first win in the $100,000 Gold Rush Futurity at Arapahoe Park on Aug. 22. But the six-furlong race was anything but smooth sailing for the horse and his rider, Glen Murphy. So for the Kip Deville, trainer Joyce Salisbury has received stewards’ permission to make the equipment change off a win.

“He broke good in the Gold Rush, then all of the sudden I could see his head go up,” Salisbury said. “He bolted, and Glen had to gather him and get him lined out again and he was way back. He started to move up and tried to bolt again between the half-mile and three-eighths [poles], then ended up circling the field.

“He’s just young and green and still learning and just needed an attention-getter.”

The attention-getter has been blinkers, and Salisbury said he has worked twice in the equipment at Remington. Both times, he went five furlongs in 1:01.20.

“He’s on the improve all the time,” Salisbury said. “He’s a nice colt.”

Smiles Ahead also has been working well at Remington. The winner of the $75,000 Prairie Gold Juvenile at 5 1/2 furlongs at Prairie Meadows on July 17, he will be making his first start in blinkers and first at Remington.

“When we got to galloping him here, he wasn’t aggressive,” said Wilson Brown, who trains Smiles Ahead. “So, we put the blinkers on him. It looks like it made him more aggressive.”

Smiles Ahead will be cutting back to one-turn after running a distant fifth last out in the $60,000 Prairie Juvenile Mile at Prairie Meadows on Aug. 6. Brown said he is drawing a line through the race and on Friday is hoping for something closer to the horse’s effort in the Prairie Gold.

“He never picked the bit up in that race,” Brown said of the Mile. “He’s really training good, so we’re just going to lead him over and see if he can come back and run like he did. I think he will. His works have been great, have been within himself.”

Ken Shino has the mount on Smiles Ahead.

Brown also will send out El Don Quixote, a seven-length debut winner at Remington on Sept. 6.

“He’s a colt that was slow-maturing and all the sudden he’s done it in a hurry,” he said.

Other impressive maiden winners in the field include probable favorite Su Casa G Casa, a 12-length winner last out at Louisiana Downs with a Beyer Speed Figure of 84. Pulgarcito was second in the allowance prep for the Kip Deville, with the winner of that race, Brickyard Fast, to run Saturday at Keeneland in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity.

◗ Retama Park will add one race a night to its programs beginning Friday, for a total of 10 races per card.

◗ The Breeders Sales Co. of Louisiana has catalogued 128 horses to its Oct. 16 mixed sale that will be held at Lamar-Dixon in Gonzales, La.