Bourbon Heist hoping for a little déjà vu; $286,380 pick six carryover

The best race of Bourbon Heist’s 24-race career, conceded trainer Ian Wilkes, came when Bourbon Heist won a first-level seven-furlong allowance at Keeneland last April. The 5-year-old gelding won by 6 1/2 lengths and earned a career-best 93 Beyer Speed Figure.

Wilkes, who has trained a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, Fort Larned, is a capable, learned, veteran trainer. But even a novice would be inclined to try and find a seven-furlong Keeneland allowance race as the ideal landing spot for Bourbon Heist.

Voila. The featured seventh race Thursday at Keeneland, a seven-furlong dirt contest, has a basic third-level allowance condition, a $100,000 claiming option, and Bourbon Heist will start from the outside of a seven-horse field. The race is part of a pick six sequence that begins with a carryover of $286,380.

“He ran such a good race that day,” Wilkes said of the year-old performance. “You’ve got to feel good about him coming back here.”

Wilkes said he was pleased to land Irad Ortiz Jr. as a jockey. Ortiz generally attracts betting attention, but Bourbon Heist still could be a fair price depending upon what Rigney Racing and trainer Phil Bauer decide to do.

Those connections entered two horses, Warrior Johny and Angkor, both unraced since November. Bauer said that “we try and avoid running horses against each other best we can,” while noting that a similar race is scheduled for opening week at Churchill.

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“We targeted that race, but having the condition on back-to-back weeks makes me a little concerned the race wouldn’t go,” Bauer said.

Reading between the lines, Angkor appears the more likely candidate to come out of the Thursday feature and try to get into the Churchill race. Warrior Johny is a less obvious fit here, if for no other reason than he’s never raced at a distance this short. Warrior Johny ended his 2023 campaign with two duds, and Bauer hopes doing something different will get the horse back on track.

“I’m hoping it wakes him up a little bit. His last two had me scratching my head because he’s one of the better training horses we have,” Bauer said.

With 10 winners entering this racing week, trainer Wesley Ward stands a strong chance of being leading trainer at the meet, but his entrant in the feature, Eye Witness, is a total unknown on dirt, having made three starts on Turfway’s Tapeta and four over turf. He ought to inject at least a mild dose of speed into a relatively paceless race that includes two entrants with no tactical pace, Blue Kentucky and Condemn.

Eyeing Clover might be fast enough to make the front, but if his price goes as high as his 4-1 morning line, it’s a bad sign for a horse trained by Brad Cox. Eyeing Clover won three of his first five starts, was distanced in the Iowa Derby last July, and didn’t race again until he finished third in a March 14 Fair Grounds allowance race. Eyeing Clover did have a difficult trip, jammed along the rail while just off the pace, but his flat final furlong once clear may be cause for skepticism.

For Bourbon Heist, things look more positive. In December, the gelding overcame a poor start and cleared his second allowance condition at Turfway, and after finishing third in that track’s Forego Stakes, Bourbon Heist’s connections turned their attention to spring.

“He’d been going a long time, and we just freshened him up a little bit,” Wilkes said. “He’ll put himself in a position, and Irad will go from there.”

And if April 2023 is a guide, Bourbon Heist can head back to the winner’s circle.

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