Colonel Liam will have to be at his best to win Old Forester Turf Classic and stay on top of division
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
LOUISVILLE Ky. – In his long, insanely successful, soon-to-be Hall of Fame career, Todd Pletcher has trained one champion male turf horse, English Channel, who took home the hardware in 2007. If Eclipse voters turned in their 2021 ballots today, Pletcher would have a second champion.
Colonel Liam has been the best grass horse in North America so far this year, but the turf season only starts to percolate in May, and Colonel Liam faces his toughest test Saturday in the Grade 1, $1 million Old Forester Turf Classic.
:: DRF's Kentucky Derby Headquarters: Contenders, latest news, past performances, analysis, and more
Colonel Liam meets eight rivals in the nine-furlong Turf Classic. Ivar, Domestic Spending, and Digital Age are Grade 1 winners. Smooth Like Strait, the race’s lone front-runner, lost the Grade 1 Kilroe Mile, his 2021 debut, by a neck and was beaten a nose by Domestic Spending in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby last fall. Count Again closed furiously to narrowly miss catching Smooth Like Strait in the Kilroe while racing at a distance short of his best. Ride a Comet finished a fine second behind a tour de force from Raging Bull on April 9 in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile. Masteroffoxhounds’s strong California form might not make much of a dent with this bunch. Cross Border is the outsider.
“I agree this is the toughest field he will have faced, but I also think he has proven he is a good horse, and he’s improving at the same time,” Pletcher said of Colonel Liam. “He needs to take to the course here and get a good trip, but I’m very confident that he, himself, is in good form.”
You’d be confident, too, if you watched this gray monster train every day. Four-year-old Colonel Liam has the look of a champion, sculpted, powerful, beautifully proportioned. His daily gallops come loaded with life, a beautiful silver tail streaming behind metronomic strides. By Liam’s Map, Colonel Liam showed spark at 3 and now has reeled off three wins in a row, getting up in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf before bossing the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial on March 20 at Fair Grounds.
“He’s a very professional horse and always has been that way,” Pletcher said. “He’s big, so I think as he’s gotten older, he’s filled into a big frame. I think he’ll stretch out farther. He’s got a good mind, and he’s versatile enough in a paceless race he won’t be compromised.”
Smooth Like Strait surely goes straight to the lead Saturday under Umberto Rispoli. Trained by Michael McCarthy, he won the War Chant here in May 2020 but this past September, he bid into a hot pace and faded in the final furlong of the American Turf. Smooth Like Strait did win the Twilight Derby over 1 1/8 miles, and while he might be a miler at heart, McCarthy said maturation will help his horse get Saturday’s trip.
“He relaxes now – that’s the difference,” he said.
Digital Age won the 2020 Turf Classic just eight months ago, making him 2 for 2 on the Churchill turf, significant since horses frequently fail to take to this sand-based grass course. Trainer Chad Brown has been working Digital Age and Domestic Spending together for a couple of months now. Both are ready to roll, he said, but Digital Age “has a little edge in that he loves the turf course here.”
That’s not to say Brown solidly favors the one horse over the other – just that Domestic Spending has never raced on the Churchill course. Domestic Spending, an English-bred son of Kingman, does have wins over turf at Tampa, Saratoga, Belmont, and Del Mar, where he ran down Smooth Like Strait to win the Hollywood Derby by a head.
“As a baby he was a bad boy and we had to geld him,” Brown said of Domestic Spending. “He was reluctant to train, just not cooperative. He came back in from that a different horse, started to run to his bloodlines. He’s got a fantastic turn of foot. He’s an exciting horse and he has that will to win.”
Brazilian-bred Ivar was imported from Argentina, where he won Group 1 stakes on dirt and turf. Trained by Brazilian import Paulo Lobo, Ivar required a couple American starts to find his footing, and when Lobo ran him without blinkers, Ivar roared to victory in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile last October. Fourth, beaten only two lengths in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, Ivar stretches out to nine furlongs, a distance he’s never tried, for his first start following a winter break.
Count Again, making his first start for trainer Phil D’Amato, came flying home to win the Seabiscuit on Nov. 28, and after being eased in his next start, he finished just as fast finishing third in the Kilroe, going his last quarter-mile in a wicked 22.23 seconds.
Masteroffoxhounds turns back from 10- and 12-furlong races and could be outquicked, as might Cross Border. Ride a Comet enters showing an in-and-out pattern. A horse will have to be on top of his game to win this edition of the Turf Classic.