Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf: Good Samaritan could be special
Plenty of Bill Mott-trained 2-year-olds begin their career racing a mile or longer on turf. Mott has sent out 86 such starters in the last five years. Only four of them won.
Mott entered the Hall of Fame 18 years ago at age 45. There’s a decent chance he knows his way around a young horse. If Mott is winning at 5 percent in a category, it’s because winning isn’t the primary goal for those horses. A first start is a means to an end, a time to learn and practice.
So, when Good Samaritan debuted Aug. 13 in a 1 1/16-mile grass race at Saratoga, wove between horses, was steered to the outside in the final 1 1/2 furlongs, and somehow got up to win by a head, it was reason to take notice. Then the horse he nipped in the race, Ticonderoga, returned Sept. 10 at Belmont and pummeled a field of turf maidens.
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Good Samaritan ran back last Sunday in the Grade 2 Summer Stakes at Woodbine. The heavily favored Conquest Farenheit had looked all racehorse in winning his debut, but Good Samaritan whizzed by him in upper stretch and won by 1 1/2 lengths. The 94 Beyer Speed Figure the winner produced is the highest by a 2-year-old in a North American route race this year. Mott never has won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, but if Good Samaritan stays the course, he might this year.
“He’s a big, good-looking, scopey individual,” Mott said. “He came around very nicely. He was extremely professional in his first race, weaving through horses. I was very pleased with his last race. A lot of times, horses will be geared up and want to run off in their second race, but he was very good, wasn’t anxious, rated well, and when [Joel Rosario] pushed the button, he came running.”
Good Samaritan is by Harlan’s Holiday and out of the Pulpit mare Pull Dancer. There’s not a ton of turf pedigree close up in his family, but his second dam is a sister to Wiseman’s Ferry, who sired the great Wise Dan. WinStar Farm bred Good Samaritan, who was entered and withdrawn from the Keeneland September yearling sale in 2015. WinStar campaigns Good Samaritan along with the China Horse Club.
Mott said Good Samaritan will be trained up to the Juvenile Turf and will remain on grass – for now. “We’ve talked about dirt for him,” Mott said. “We decided that what we’ll do is if he’s still showing good energy after the Breeders’ Cup, maybe we’d come back and try him on dirt after that to see where to go with him.”
Like the horse who beat him in the Summer, Conquest Farenheit will be aimed directly at the Juvenile Turf, a race to which he’ll have to be supplemented. The major upcoming Juvenile Turf preps are the Pilgrim at Belmont, the Bourbon at Keeneland, and, to a lesser extent, the Zuma Beach at Santa Anita. The European contingent for the race has yet to take firm shape, but there will be one, and it has usually been formidable.