Does Shred the Gnar have a Breeders' Cup future?
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Those not attuned to the lexicon of skiers, snowboarders, and surfers have no idea what “shred the gnar” means, but anyone tuned into the Chilukki Stakes on Saturday at Churchill Downs could see that the filly named Shred the Gnar meant business.
Making her stakes debut, racing for the first time since May 2, and facing older horses for the first time, Shred the Gnar tore off to a 2 3/4-length victory in the Grade 3, $300,000 Chilukki, a one-turn dirt mile, and her time of 1:34.84 yielded a 97 Beyer Speed Figure. Scottish Lassie’s 99 Beyer in July marks the only figure higher than Shred the Gnar’s for a 3-year-old filly running a mile or farther on dirt.
The figure didn’t come out of nowhere. Shred the Gnar won her second and third starts by open lengths with Beyers of 90 and 94 before soft-tissue soreness sidelined her. Brian Lynch, who trains Shred the Gnar for Travis Boersma’s Flying Dutchmen, had his horse plenty tight for her comeback.
“When you’re bringing a horse like her back there’s some pressure, and she took some weight off my shoulders,” Lynch said. “Her last work was an indicator she was sitting on a big race. She had a very strong gallop out, never came off the bridle.”
Shred the Gnar stretched out to 1 1/16 miles around two turns in May, and as well as she ran Saturday, Lynch thinks the distance wasn’t ideal. “The longer the better,” he said.
Shred the Gnar heads to the Palm Meadows training center in Florida for the winter, but don’t expect connections to rush back into action, with Lynch hinting the filly might not race again until February or March.
“She bounced out of the race in good order, but we’re not going to be in a hurry,” he said. “She looks like the kind of filly you could race sparingly through the year and hope to be able to point to the Breeders’ Cup.”
- Additional reporting from David Grening
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