Churchill Downs: Seven Lively Sins preps for Jackpot in Iroquois Stakes

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Last Saturday, Delta Downs ran the $200,000 Jean Lafitte Stakes, a race won by My Adonis, as the official prep for the $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot on Nov. 19.

This Sunday, Churchill Downs is running what might be considered the unofficial prep – the Grade 3, $100,000 Iroquois Stakes, the co-feature on the track’s opening-day, all-juvenile racecard.

Four of the seven Iroquois entrants are nominated to the Delta Downs Jackpot: favorites Seven Lively Sins and Mr. Bowling and longshots Purely Determined and Fine. And should one or more jump up with a top performance, they could run their way into the Jackpot.

Seven Lively Sins – a son of Stormy Atlantic who after a third in his debut at Saratoga won a maiden race in fast time at Keeneland – is in the Iroquois rather than an allowance partially because horses with top-three finishes in graded stakes races have Jackpot preference over horses without such experience, if the race overfills.

Trainer Al Stall also thinks quite highly of his horse, who he owns in partnership with Stewart Madison and Justin Querbes III.

Stall feels the one-mile distance of the Iroquois offers a nice progression after the colt raced 5 1/2 furlongs in his debut at Saratoga and seven furlongs in his Keeneland maiden win Oct. 7. And he chose the race believing with it so close on the calendar to the Breeders’ Cup, it “could be beat up by the Juvenile and the [Juvenile] Sprint, the new race,” he said.

Julien Leparoux rides Seven Lively Sins, narrowly favored at 2-1 on the morning line.

Mr. Bowling, who took the Dover Stakes in his most recent start at Delaware Park on Oct. 8, also is a possibility for the Jackpot, said trainer Larry Jones, whose winter string of horses is headed south to Fair Grounds in Louisiana.

He called the outside post in the field of seven “perfect” for Mr. Bowling, a colt that “doesn’t want to be hurried.”

The Iroquois also could generate some starters for the Grade 2, $150,000 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill on Nov. 26, with Motor City one such potential candidate.

Trained by Churchill Downs regular Ian Wilkes, Motor City just ran eighth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity on Oct. 8 – a lackluster performance Wilkes attributes to Motor City partially tearing off a shoe in the race. He ran third in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity.