Churchill Downs notes: Gentlemen's Bet eyes Cigar Mile

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Gentlemen’s Bet might well be headed for the Grade 1 Cigar Mile in New York, setting up the possibility of an intriguing clash with Goldencents and Golden Ticket, the one-two finishers in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile last weekend.

Gentlemen’s Bet also raced at Santa Anita last weekend, carrying an open lead past the furlong pole before settling for third in the six-furlong BC Sprint. Trainer Ron Moquett is interested to see how the 4-year-old colt will fare with a bit more distance.

“He’s got a real high cruising speed, and I honestly think he might be at his best as a miler type,” Moquett said. “We’ll kind of play it by ear, see how he trains the next couple of weeks and go from there.”

The $500,000 Cigar Mile is set for Nov. 30 at Aqueduct.

Back with a bang

When a gray mare named Charming She Is won a starter allowance last Sunday at Churchill at 5-1, it passed without much fanfare to the vast majority.

But for Lorah Wax, it was a race she will never forget. A 31-year-old Pennsylvania native who once galloped horses for Scott Lake at Penn National, Wax left the racetrack about four years ago to work with hunter-jumpers and show horses at her Dreamers Run Farm in Lexington, Ky.

Only at the urging of Lee Clark, the owner of Charming She Is, did Wax return to the track for a part-time gig, and she now trains a stable of three at the Thoroughbred Training Center. The victory Sunday with Charming She Is came with just her second starter.

“It shocked me,” Wax said. “But it’s nice to be back in racing. I still give lessons with my hunter-jumpers and very much enjoy it, but there’s nothing like the racetrack.”

Proceed Bee still going strong

Proceed Bee has been a mainstay of the Chicago circuit for so long that probably few people knew that his victory here Thursday in a $16,000 claiming race on the main track wasn’t his first at Churchill.

Now 7, Proceed Bee won the Grand Canyon Stakes on the Churchill turf as a 2-year-old on Nov. 29, 2008, in just his fourth career start. Owned throughout his career by retired Ralston Purina chairman Bill Stiritz, Proceed Bee now has won 14 of 41 starts and $722,051.

Perfect Drift ponies a winner

Winning must be infectious. Perfect Drift, the gelding who earned more than $4.7 million in seven years of racing, is enjoying yet another incarnation on the racetrack, having been retrained as a pony. On Thursday, the 14-year-old gelding accompanied his first horse to the post: Gold Megillah, winner of the first race on the card.

After being retired from racing, Perfect Drift spent several years as the “resident horse” at the Kentucky Derby Museum before moving back into the stable area this spring for yet another career.

Which felt better?

Just a couple hours after Buff Bradley and his family and partners sold their stable star Groupie Doll for $3.1 million on Wednesday at Keeneland, Bradley was represented in the 10th and last race of the Churchill racing program with a 3-year-old gelding named Jazil Bell.

That led to the following tweet from Churchill media relations director Darren Rogers, who was providing a quote from his Churchill colleague, racing secretary Ben Huffman: “Not a bad day for Buff Bradley. Sells Groupie Doll for $3.1M and wins non-2 $7,500 nightcap.”

Positively a strange coincidence

By coincidence, a 3-year-old colt named Positively was scheduled to run here Saturday in the ninth race – and then a 4-year-old filly named Positively is entered in the seventh race Sunday.

Explanation: the colt, trained by Pat Byrne, is a Kentucky-bred, while the filly, trained by Brendan Walsh, was bred in Great Britain. The Jockey Club in the United States will not permit horses to have identical names until a prescribed period of time has elapsed, but that does not preclude horses from other countries having the same name.

Hill headed for Turfway

Jockey Channing Hill, who has ridden frequently this year in Chicago and Kentucky for high-percentage trainer Wayne Catalano, will ride the first few weeks at the Turfway Park meet that starts Dec. 1 with Steve Elzey as his new agent.

Lenny Pike Jr. has been working for Hill but is leaving as soon as the Churchill meet ends to continue working for Joe Rocco Jr. in Florida. Hill and Elzey are headed to Oaklawn Park this winter.

◗ The only Downs After Dark program of the fall meet was scheduled months ago for next Saturday, Nov. 16. Little did anyone suspect it would present a conflict for area sports fans, as a 7 p.m. Eastern kickoff for the Houston-Louisville college football game at nearby Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium was set just last week for television purposes.