Churchill Downs begins September meet; Sir Winston eyes rebound in Champions Day Marathon
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Amid the highly unusual circumstances that have come to characterize this entire year, Churchill Downs on Tuesday will open its September meet with the 146th Kentucky Derby culminating the first week.
The Tuesday opener begins a 14-day split meet. Racing will be conducted for five straight days, ending with the Derby on Saturday, before Kentucky Downs in south-central Kentucky hosts a six-day meet from Sept. 7-16. Churchill then will run the last nine days of its meet from Sept. 17-27.
All of this rescheduling is due, of course, to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the postponement of the Derby for the first time in 75 years. The $3 million Derby, originally scheduled for May 2, is the last of 17 Derby week stakes worth more than $9.75 million. Spectators are not being permitted admission throughout the meet, including Derby Day, because of the pandemic.
Entries for the Tuesday opener were drawn Friday. The $115,000 Champions Day Marathon, a 1 1/2-mile race for 3-year-olds and up on the main track, is the feature. Sir Winston, the 2019 Belmont Stakes winner, and Core Beliefs, a supplemental entry with a pair of graded wins to his credit, ship in as the most accomplished runners in the Marathon, but local trainer Ian Wilkes believes Ry’s the Guy is capable of upsetting them. He breaks from the inside post and goes turf to dirt.
“He’s honest,” Wilkes said. “The last time I ran him on the dirt, he ran really well,” referring to an allowance romp in June 2019 at Churchill. “I thought it’d be good just to change him up a little and move him back to the dirt for this.”
Ry’s the Guy has been competitive in higher-level turf races but has gone winless in his last eight starts.
Sir Winston, trained by Mark Casse, has raced four times since his Belmont upset, sandwiching a pair of lopsided losses around a win and a second. The 4-year-old colt will be looking to rebound off a 21-length drubbing in the July 4 Suburban.
Core Beliefs, a 5-year-old horse based in California with Scott Hansen, was good enough to win the Grade 3 Ohio Derby at 3 and the Grade 2 New Orleans at 4, although he has mostly struggled in recent starts. Still, his career bankroll of $904,511 speaks to his class.
From the rail and with riders, this is the lineup of six for the Marathon, which goes as the fourth of nine races: Ry’s the Guy, Chris Landeros; Rated R Superstar, Martin Garcia; Core Beliefs, Joe Talamo; Easy Shot, James Graham; Eskenforit, Chantal Sutherland; and Sir Winston, Tyler Gaffalione.
The purse for the Marathon includes $25,000 in bonuses from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund. Purses for maiden specials and allowances and some stakes at the September meet include such bonuses, restricted to registered Kentucky-breds.
The September meet will mark the return of many top horses to their primary base, including many in the barn of Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, who during the spring meet became the all-time winningest trainer in track history. Asmussen was very active in recent weeks at Saratoga, but will be consolidating his horses back at Churchill in the coming days and weeks. Trainers Brad Cox, Mike Maker, Brendan Walsh, and Tom Amoss also can be expected to be hitting on all cylinders when assimilating horses from elsewhere at Churchill .
Chad Brown, with Whit Beckman as his local assistant, also has a 24-horse barn that will be active throughout the meet, particularly in Derby week stakes and allowances.
First post daily is 1 p.m. Eastern, starting with the first three days of Derby week. First post for both Kentucky Oaks Day (Friday, 13 races) and Derby (Saturday, 14 races) cards is 11 a.m. Eastern.
Fox Sports (FS1 and FS2) will televise much of the Churchill action with live on-site coverage, although NBCSN has prime Oaks coverage (3-6 p.m. Friday) and NBC will carry much of the Derby Day action (2:30-7:30 p.m. Saturday).
After a couple of soggy days leading up to the meet, cloudy conditions (but no rain) and a high of 82 are in the forecast for Tuesday.
This is the eighth year for a September meet at Churchill, which assumed the dates from Turfway Park in 2013. Churchill purchased Turfway last year and is in the process of rebuilding it from scratch into a racino-style facility.