Channel Maker seeks a second Bowling Green victory

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A seemingly wide-open renewal of the Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green Stakes Saturday at Saratoga features the previous three winners of the race and five horses capable of joining the list.

Channel Maker dead-heated with Glorious Empire for first in this race in 2018. Channel Cat got the job done for then-trainer Todd Pletcher in 2019. Cross Border was elevated to first in 2020 after Sadler’s Joy was disqualified for interference.

Channel Maker, a 7-year-old gelding by English Channel, is starting in the Bowling Green for the fourth consecutive year. Last year, he was elevated to third after finishing fourth, but it served as a springboard to success in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer and Grade 1 Joe Hirsch. Those wins, coupled with a good third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, were enough to make Channel Maker the male turf champion.

After finishing second in the Neom Turf Cup at Saudi Arabia in February and eighth in the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan in March, Channel Maker is kicking off the second half of his 7-year-old campaign in this spot.

Channel Maker was off the work tab for three weeks after developing a temperature in early June. His last two works have been solid, including a six-furlong move on the turf with War Like Goddess. Channel Maker could be helped by a course made softer by Thursday’s rain.

“It’s his first race since traveling to the other side of the world,” trainer Bill Mott said. “Hopefully, there’s a progression that he can get from here to the Sword Dancer to the Joe Hirsch.”

Channel Maker, who will be ridden by Manny Franco, does his better running on the lead. So does Channel Cat, who won the Grade 1 Man o’ War in May when John Velazquez got aggressive and put him on the lead despite setting fast early fractions.

A good pace could aid the cause of Mott’s other two starters, Moon Over Miami and Red Knight. Moon Over Miami has not run since he was third, beaten a neck by Channel Cat, in the Man o’ War. Mott scratched Moon Over Miami out of the Grand Couturier on July 5 due to soft ground. He had considered running him in the Grade 1 United Nations at Monmouth, but found a better spot in a Belmont allowance. The race did not fill.

“It wasn’t the original plan to run in this race,” Mott said. “Just because of weather and the fact the race didn’t go forced me into this spot.”

Asked about having 12 weeks between races, Mott said, “I’m not overly worried about that.”

Red Knight is a New York-bred who has won several open-company stakes, including the Grade 3 Sycamore at Keeneland last October. He finished fifth with trouble in his last start, the Grand Couturier, and is getting blinkers on Saturday.

“Just keep him in the bridle a little more,” Mott said about the blinker change. “I’m not going to put much blinker on him. He got stuffed last time. He was in behind horses and never got free.”

Channel Cat won the Man o’ War three weeks after he finished second in the Grade 2 Elkhorn at Keeneland. Channel Cat came back four weeks after the Man o’ War in the Manhattan, and he chased the front-running Tribhuvan before fading to seventh behind winner Domestic Spending.

“Should have skipped the Manhattan, waited for the Bowling Green,” trainer Jack Sisterson said. “Can’t turn back time; we’ll look forward now. This seems perfect timing and we expect he should be up for a top performance on Saturday.”

Cross Border hasn’t won since he was put up to first by the stewards here in last year’s Bowling Green. He has been effective from on and off the pace. He was a late-running second behind runaway leader Megacity in a June 27 allowance at Belmont. Cross Border is 5 for 6 at Saratoga, with three of the wins coming against New York-bred company.

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Cross Border goes out for the white-hot connections of trainer Mike Maker and jockey Luis Saez.

Trainer Chad Brown has the uncoupled pair of Rockemperor and Breakpoint. Rockemperor took advantage of some class relief to win a 1 1/4-mile allowance at Belmont. That followed a fifth in the Manhattan, where he may have been hampered by soft turf and Grade 1 company.

Breakpoint was fourth in his first start for Brown and first in this country. Brown said Breakpoint ran like he trained.

“He was a little bit lazy in the morning, but I think he got a lot of that because he’s come back and worked better now and he seems a little more settled,” Brown said.

Shamrocket, who sandwiched an allowance win around two narrow losses in stakes company, completes the field.