Breeders' Cup Mile: Factor This has come so far so fast for Cox
It was late in 2014 when trainer Brad Cox sent Chocolate Ride, a horse recently claimed for $40,000, into his Fair Grounds string. Chocolate Ride turned into a front-running monster that winter, starting his meet with a first-level allowance win and ending it with victories in the Fair Grounds Handicap and in the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial. Chocolate Ride won the Fair Grounds Handicap again the next season but in truth never was the same horse he’d been that first season in New Orleans.
Factor This came out of Fair Grounds with the same sort of feel this year. Claimed for $62,500 in August 2018, Factor This had a decent 2019 and entered the most recent Fair Grounds meet a listed stakes winner. Over the winter, he turned into a front-running turf monster, winning the Fair Grounds Stakes by one length and the Muniz by three. Those easily were the best performances of Factor This’s career, both seemingly aided by an inside speed bias upon which Factor This capitalized, but unlike Chocolate Ride, Factor This kept on trucking after heading north in the spring.
He won the Grade 2 Wise Dan at Churchill in June in a start where he carried layoff rust; gutted out a victory over a boggy Ellis Park turf course in the Kentucky Downs Preview Turf Cup Stakes; finished a game, close second to Digital Age in the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic in September; and on Oct. 3 won the Grade 2 Dinner Party Stakes at Pimlico with a 110 Beyer Speed Figure, the top turf figure in North America this year. Now, Cox is preparing Factor This for a start in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
“I wish I knew,” said Cox, asked what had spurred Factor This’s transformation at age 5. “He broke the track record at Fair Grounds in February and again in March. You start thinking to yourself, ‘How long can he keep this form?’ ”
Factor This might’ve kept going steadily in the spring if not for the COVID-19 pandemic, and a three-month break between the Muniz and the Wise Dan, Cox said, might’ve kept Factor This somewhat fresh for late summer and fall.
Factor This is owned by Gaining Ground Racing, the nom de course of brothers Brian and Tom Cutshall, whose racehorse holdings are relatively slim and typically restricted to claimers. It was at Keeneland in April 2019, four races and nine months after claiming Factor This, that the horse shined, winning a first-level allowance with a 94 Beyer.
“That’s when we saw what we thought we’d claimed,” Cox said. “We thought we could turn this horse into a stakes horse.”
Factor This has raced as far as 1 1/2 miles, so the BC Turf might have been a consideration, but Cox said the Mile always seemed the better choice. “It is shorter than ideal for him, but I like shortening up as opposed to stretching way out with a horse.”
Now, Factor This will try to continue stretching his fabulous Fair Grounds run out through all of 2020.
◗ Cox confirmed he also plans to run the mare Beau Recall in the Mile. Beau Recall won the Distaff Turf Mile over Newspaperofrecord in September and earlier this month was a strong closing second behind Mile starter Uni in the First Lady at Keeneland.
◗ Three-year-old Siskin, based in Ireland with trainer Ger Lyons, is being aimed for the Mile before going off to stud in Japan. An undefeated Group 1 winner at 2, Siskin won the Irish 2000 Guineas in his first start this season, then finished a solid third in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes. He was fourth Sept. 6 in the Prix du Moulin after coming unglued in the starting gate, an issue that has cropped up before. Lyons said the trip to Keeneland could be called off if it appears the turf course will be soft.