Channel Maker ($32.40) easy winner of Bowling Green Stakes
?q=100)
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Champions Week concluded Sunday at Saratoga when Channel Maker, the Eclipse Award-winning male turf horse of 2020, scored a two-length, front-running victory in Sunday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green Stakes.
Benefitting from the scratch of speed horse Strong Quality, Channel Maker, under Manny Franco, was allowed to dictate terms on the lead through soft fractions and had something more to give in the stretch, running away from any would-be pursuers.
Verstappen finished second by a head over Never Explain. Daunt, Tawny Port, Highest Honors, Soldier Rising and The Grey Wizard completed the order of finish. Soldier Rising ran for purse-money only because he was inadvertently, and briefly, posted as a scratch on the Equibase website seven hours before the race. Rockemperor scatched.
Rebel’s Romance, the 1-2 favorite, clipped heels with Tawny Port at the five-sixteenths pole, and unseated jockey Richard Mullen, who hit the ground hard. Mullen was removed from the course on a backboard and taken by ambulance to Albany Medical Center. The New York Racing Association reported Mullen was alert, conscious and was able to move his extremities.
Channel Maker had lost his last seven starts and it appeared Father Time was catching up to him. But two things played in his favor Sunday. The scratch of Strong Quality, who was the other speed in the field, and some give in the turf course, the type of ground over which Channel Maker has previously thrived.
Strong Quality was scratched to run in the Arlington Million on Aug. 12. Gary Barber owned a piece of both Strong Quality and Channel Maker.
“He said I have two horses in the same race, they’re going to knock each other off,” said Adam Wachtel, co-owner of Channel Maker. “Gary’s gesture gave Channel Maker a much better chance to win today.”
Over a course labeled good, Channel Maker was able to set fractions of 25.40 seconds for the quarter, 50.85 for the half, 1:16.15 for six furlongs, 1:39.53 for the mile and he covered the 1 3/8 miles in 2:15.21 and returned $32.40
“I liked the situation we were in when he made the lead and he was galloping in front, that was great,” winning trainer Bill Mott said. “We haven’t been able to do that in a while.”
Mott capped off a big weekend, which included Elite Power’s victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt, the day of the trainer’s 70th birthday.
“A pretty doggone good weekend, buddy,” Mott said.
Channel Maker won for the 10th time in 54 starts. All 10 of his wins have come in stakes, including a dead-heat victory in the 2018 Bowling Green. He has now earned $3,890,358.
Wachtel and Barber bought Channel Maker early in his 3-year-old year of 2017. They later brought in partners Dean Reeves and Randy Hill. Though he has never won a Breeders’ Cup race - he finished third in the 2020 Turf - Channel Maker has competed in five straight runnings of the Turf as well as the 2016 Juvenile Turf.
“He’s something special,” Wachtel said. “Maybe I’ve had some more talented horses, but this is the best horse I’ve ever owned. It’s a special win for all of us.”
The New York Racing Association prohibits horses 10 years of age or older to race or stable at NYRA tracks, so this is Channel Maker’s last year of racing on this circuit and Wachtel has said he would be retired at year’s end. He could make one final start at Saratoga in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer on Aug. 26. He won the Sword Dancer in 2020.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.