Cowboy Culture shows he'll be a handful in turf stakes

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The list of horsemen sending stock to race in England, especially at Royal Ascot, grows longer each year. Trainer Brad Cox doesn’t have anything for Ascot this season, but it might be something he wants to think about.

Cox’s work with turf-stakes horses the last two calendar years has been remarkable: He went 17-11-6 from 58 such starters in 2016 (a 29 percent strike rate), and so far this year is 6-7-2 from 25 runners (24 percent strike rate). Those are awesome numbers at the stakes level, and the Cox barn’s most recent turf-stakes success, Cowboy Culture, looks like he could have a good summer ahead of him.

Cowboy Culture, rebounding back to the strong grass form he showed over the winter at Fair Grounds, won the Grade 3, $100,000 Arlington Classic on Saturday by 5 3/4 lengths. His 1 1/16-mile time was a slow 1:48.61, but the yielding Arlington course proved very laboring in two races run over it Saturday, and the winner of the race after the Classic, a $20,000 maiden claimer, required 1:51.09 to cover the same distance. Cowboy Culture got a 93 Beyer Speed Figure, topping his previous career-best 90 from his win over Girvin in the Keith Gee Memorial on Feb. 4.

Cox said Tuesday that Cowboy Culture had shipped back to Churchill Downs on Saturday night and appeared to have come out of his race in good shape. Cowboy Culture started his career with three wins, but after the Keith Gee he shipped poorly to Gulfstream Park and was a flat seventh there in the Palm Beach Stakes on March 4. In the Transylvania at Keeneland in April, Cowboy Culture showed a little more spark but still finished sixth. The colt, by Quality Road, never backed off in his training, Cox said, and might have benefited from having more time between starts going into the Arlington Classic.

“In his training he was telling us over the last three weeks he really wanted to run,” Cox said. “I hope we got better things down the road. He’s nominated to the American Derby, and right now that’s probably Plan A.”

The American Derby will be run July 8 at Arlington.

For now, Cowboy Culture rates as the second-string 3-year-old grass horse in Cox’s barn behind Arklow, who was switched to grass at Keeneland and won the American Turf at Churchill in his most recent start. Cox said Arklow will race next in the Belmont Derby Invitational on July 8.

Australian jockey coming

Australian jockey Blake Shinn will ride at Arlington this summer for several weeks during the slow time of the Australian racing season. Shinn is expected to have his first mounts at the meet on the June 9 card.

The move for Shinn, 29, comes under the auspices of trainer Wesley Ward, who met Shinn several years ago through a mutual friend, Australian trainer Gai Waterhouse.

“Blake took some time off a few years back and came out to Keeneland to spend a little time with me,” Ward said. “He wanted to come back at some point and give it a try here, but we wanted to do it at the right time. He’s won the Melbourne Cup and the Golden Slipper. His skills, you don’t even need to talk about that. But first of all, he’s a fantastic guy. The time I spent with him – he’s just a genuine person, and that goes further with me than anything else.”

In 2013, Ward arranged for jockey Joao Moreira to have a short stint riding in the United States, including at Arlington. Moreira has gone on to become one of the world’s highest-rated riders while based in Hong Kong.

Steve Leving, who was Ward’s agent during his final period as a jockey, will handle Shinn’s business at Arlington, Ward said. Leving is the agent for leading Arlington rider Jose Valdivia Jr.

Valdivia on fire

Meanwhile, Leving’s principal jockey, Valdivia, is having another excellent Arlington meet. Valdivia rode nine winners during the four-day race week ending May 29, and for the 2017 season has 26 winners from 75 mounts, good for a 33 percent strike rate and a 13-win lead in the jockey standings over second-place Carlos Marquez Jr.

Valdivia was leading rider here in 2015 with 80 wins and in 2016 with 100 wins, turning his career completely around after struggling early in 2015.

Correas has nice 3-year-old

Trainer Ignacio Correas IV has horses stabled at Arlington for the first time this summer, and his 15-horse string here produced two winners on the May 27 card. The mare La Piba nicely won an off-turf second-level allowance race, but even more impressive was second-time-starting 3-year-old Malraux. Malraux’s 9 3/4-length win in Saturday’s fourth race, a maiden sprint rained off turf and onto Polytrack, produced a 91 Beyer Speed Figure.

Correas said he planned to start Malraux, a son of Speightstown, in a first-level turf-sprint allowance race.

“I started training him in November,” Correas said. “As a yearling, he wasn’t much use.”

Correas’s best horse is Kasaqui, who won the Arlington Handicap and finished second in the Arlington Million in 2016. Correas said Kasaqui will hew to the same schedule this summer following a start in the Wise Dan Stakes at Churchill Downs.