Dry conditions just what Tawny Port wants in Gold Cup
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The weather forecast calls for a hot, dry week at Kentucky Downs, which means the connections of Tawny Port stand a good chance of making it rain after the Bowling Green Gold Cup Invitational on Thursday.
Tawny Port likes a dry, firm, fast course, and on that sort of going he rates a solid favorite to earn the winner’s share of a $750,000 purse in the Gold Cup, a stayers’ race over 2 1/16 miles.
Tawny Port long has excelled racing over 1 1/2 miles but looks even better going farther than that. He finished second in this race last year – no match for a German buzzsaw named Flatten the Curve, who was brilliant on the day – and in his second two-mile-ish try, captured the Belmont Gold Cup in June.
Trainer Miguel Clement expected a competitive performance Aug. 15 in the Grade 1 Christophe Clement over 1 1/2 miles – until the Saratoga course came up wet. Tawny Port checked in an even fifth over yielding going.
“He doesn’t like soft turf whatsoever, and prior to post I was very worried about the ground,” Clement said. “Sure enough, he still doesn’t have an affinity for it.”
A year ago, Tawny Port came back a week after the Bowling Green Gold Cup to finish second in the $2 million Turf Cup, but that race comes just two days after the Gold Cup this season, making this Tawny Port’s one chance to shine over a course he evidently likes. He’ll be favored Thursday under Tyler Gaffalione, who has ridden the horse just once in his 33-start career.
The Belmont Gold Cup runner-up, Navy Seal, could offer the stiffest competition. Fifth in the 2024 Nashville Derby at Kentucky Downs, Navy Seal shined over the local lawn a year ago with a smart second-level allowance score. Trainer Wesley Ward tried him at a true staying trip for the first time in the Belmont Gold Cup, where Navy Seal held a lead in upper stretch before Tawny Port swept past.
“This spot was in my mind even before he ran in that race,” Ward said.
Navy Seal shows a gap in published workouts from July 22 through Aug. 20. Ignore it. To begin with, Navy Seal gallops 2 1/2 miles during a standard morning’s training, and Ward said the unconventional one-mile weekly breezes he’s been giving Navy Seal don’t make the work tab because of how they’re configured, and how slow they are.
Navy Seal often works from the five-furlong pole to the five-furlong pole while staying closer to the outside rail than the inner fence. The five-furlong time the horse runs to the wire comes up too slow for clockers to even enter into the database.
Several others in the eight-horse field could pull an upset, and a win from Limited Liability wouldn’t really be an upset at all. He cruised to an easy victory in this race’s 2024 renewal and checked in third last year, beaten just 1 1/2 lengths by Tawny Port. But 7-year-old Limited Liability races for the first time since November, and it’s hard to imagine he could take down Tawny Port – particularly on a scorching, sun-baked Kentucky Downs afternoon.
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