Churchill Downs: Gray high on Abbey Street in allowance

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Liz Gray is one of those trainers who is far more familiar to folks on the backstretch than those in the stands. Gray would like that to change by certain degrees but knows it can only happen by sending out more winners, and a step in that direction is quite possible Thursday at Churchill Downs.

Gray will send out Abbey Street as one of the main contenders in the only allowance on a 10-race card, a $43,000, first-level race at a mile on turf.

“I really thought she could’ve won last time,” Gray said, referring to a fourth-place finish in an Oct. 6 off-the-grass race on Polytrack at Keeneland. “I actually thought she would’ve gone through this condition by now, but that’s the way it works sometimes.”

Gray grew up in Alexandria, Va., and took her first job with horses in 1984 at the Middleburg training center. In the nearly three decades since then, working primarily as an assistant and exercise rider, she has become very well known to horsemen in New York, Florida, Southern California, and numerous points in between, including Kentucky, where she just bought a home last week.

In 2008, Gray began training a small stable that now consists of eight horses, all of whom were shipped out Tuesday to Gulfstream Park except for Abbey Street, a homebred 3-year-old filly owned by Syracuse attorney William Lynn. Her main client is Detroit auto-parts dealer Richard Brodie, who runs under the stable name of Andrew Farm.

“I thought I’d rather try training my own,” she said, “and even though I knew how tough it was, I thought I’d rather do it than not do it and have regrets later.”

Gray, 51, said she long has dabbled in “flipping houses” while maintaining steady racetrack work. Her former employers include Paul Fout, Ross Pearce, Tom Bohannan, Richard Mandella, Lou Goldfine, Mark Hennig, Jeff Jacobs, and Dale Romans. For the last six winters, her horses have shared the same shed row at Gulfstream with those of Allen Jerkens, the Hall of Fame trainer.

“We’re pretty tight,” Gray said. “We probably have dinner together two or three nights a week.”

Abbey Street, a maiden winner on the Churchill turf during Kentucky Derby week, is small in stature, “barely 15 hands,” Gray said, “but she’s pretty gutsy. She’s training unbelievably, too, so hopefully we’ll have some luck Thursday.”

Abbey Street, with Shaun Bridgmohan to ride, was assigned post 6 in the ninth-race feature, which drew an oversubscribed cast of fillies and mares but will be limited to 10 starters, assuming the race stays on the grass. Among the other top contenders in the main body of a very well-matched field are Vintage Strike, Book Club, Liberated, Al’s Rosie, and Bustle.

First post Thursday is 12:40 p.m. Eastern.

◗ Easily the biggest day of this five-day race week at Churchill is Saturday, when a pair of graded turf stakes for 3-year-olds, the Mrs. Revere and Commonwealth Turf, anchors the lone Downs After Dark program of the fall meet. First post Saturday is 4:30 p.m.