Commonwealth contender Barbados glad bar shoe gone
A salty group for the Grade 3, $250,000 Commonwealth Stakes highlights the competitive nature of Keeneland’s opening Saturday. The field of 10 older horses sprinting seven furlongs includes six graded stakes winners, two of them millionaires. Of the four seeking their first graded victory, three are already graded-placed, including one classic-placed runner.
Grade 3 winner Barbados finished a strong second to eventual sprint champion Runhappy in the Grade 3 Phoenix Stakes at Keeneland last fall, with 2014 sprint champion Work All Week in third. But Barbados went on to finish 12th in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland a few weeks later, which trainer Mike Tomlinson attributes to a foot abscess that popped early during the week of the race. Barbados signaled that he’s ready for a big season with a comeback win in the Pelican Stakes in February at Tampa Bay Downs.
“Because of the abscess, he ended up with a quarter crack, and we ended up having to cut the crack out and fit him with a bar shoe,” Tomlinson said. “He was sound, but he didn’t like the bar shoe at all and put out no effort. The time we’ve spent since the Breeders’ Cup has been growing his feet out and getting his back feet healthy again. He’s got an extreme turn of foot when he puts his mind to it.”
Barbados drew the extreme-outside post under regular rider Luis Saez. Just to his inside under Florent Geroux is morning-line favorite Holy Boss. A Grade 2 winner, Holy Boss also acquitted himself well at Keeneland last year for trainer Steve Asmussen, finishing fourth in both the Phoenix and Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
The versatile Ready for Rye, a graded winner on dirt and a stakes winner on turf last year, got back on dirt for his 2016 debut after finishing seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and was third behind X Y Jet in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Sprint last out.
Multiple graded stakes winner Departing won the Grade 2 Firecracker Handicap last year at a mile on the Churchill Downs turf. He is winless since and gets back on the main track and cuts back in distance after finishing third in the Grade 3 Fair Grounds Handicap last out. Departing is one of two millionaires in the field, along with Clearly Now, who is looking for his first stakes victory since June 2014.
Also cutting back to one turn, for the first time in more than a year, is Far Right, who was a player on the Kentucky Derby trail last year. After a solid return to the races against allowance company over the winter, Far Right finished eighth in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap last out.
Familiar foes in Shakertown
Turf sprinters also have a place on the card in the Grade 2, $200,000 Shakertown, which reunites the first-, third-, and fourth-place finishers from last year’s edition in a competitive field of 12.
The veteran Something Extra won the 2015 Shakertown in his third attempt at the race; he was second in 2013 and third in 2014. However, he is winless since. Undrafted, third in the Shakertown, parlayed a solid spring in Kentucky into a victory in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot for trainer Wesley Ward. He returned to finish second while stretching out in the More Than Ready Mile at Kentucky Downs and then was fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. This is his first start since.
Power Alert used his fourth-place finish here as a springboard to a win in the Grade 3 Twin Spires Turf Sprint at Churchill over Undrafted and Something Extra. He was winless through the rest of 2015 but comes in with momentum, having won the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint in February and the Silks Run Stakes last month.
“I am worried a little bit about the weather because he is a horse that likes firm turf,” trainer Brian Lynch said.
Rain was expected in the Lexington area on Thursday and Friday.
Neither morning-line favorite Undrafted nor second choice Power Alert fared well at the draw. Power Alert has the rail under Julien Leparoux, while Undrafted is in post 10 under John Velazquez.