Burnham Square gets back to work after loss; still on track for BC Turf
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Burnham Square took a considerable step back finishing seventh as the favorite in the Kentucky Turf Cup on Sept. 5 at Kentucky Downs, but he will move forward as planned to the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Ian Wilkes, Burnham Square’s trainer, said Burnham Square came out of the Turf Cup in excellent condition, and that the gelding worked back Sept. 20 at the Skylight Training Center, his home base. That breeze as of Monday hadn’t yet been officially reported, nor had any from Sept. 20 at Skylight. There can be a delay in the recording of works at off-track training centers.
Burnham Square had won four in a row – the Grade 2 Elkhorn at Keeneland, the Grade 3 Louisville, the listed Chorleywood at Churchill, and the Grade 1 Arlington Million at Colonial Downs – coming into the Turf Cup. He had run very well over the Kentucky Downs course a year earlier, missing by a head in the Nashville Derby to England-based Wimbledon Hawkeye, who recently demonstrated his merit finishing second by a nose Sept. 12 in the Group 1 Irish Champion.
But Burnham Square never really looked like himself in the Turf Cup. He traveled just okay racing from mid-pack, gave jockey Brian Hernandez an eighth of a mile run at the end of the far turn, then went flat. Both Hernandez and Wilkes said shortly after the race that they believed Burnham Square had wilted in the heat: It was 95 degrees under bright sunshine when the Turf Cup went off.
Wilkes elaborated on that belief when reached by telephone Monday.
“I should have scratched him,” Wilkes said. “It was just too hot – at least for him. He’s not the best shipper, and he was busy, busy all day, and he was hot all day. I’m looking at $2 million and thought I could be half right and still win. I got schooled. I went home with my tail between my legs.”
Burnham Square got a couple extra days off, then got right back to business.
“I was very happy with his work yesterday. I really want to stress: The horse is doing excellent. As long as he’s doing good, he’ll run in the Breeders’ Cup, but I’m glad to have seven weeks to make sure I don’t get a false read on him, just to watch him and make sure,” Wilkes said.
No horse in North America this year has earned a turf Beyer Speed Figure any higher than the 107 Burnham Square got in April. That came in his 9 3/4-length victory in the Elkhorn over 1 1/2 miles at Keeneland – same circumstances as the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
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