Ellis Park Derby tops stakes-heavy card
Timing is everything – which is why the fourth running of the Ellis Park Derby on Sunday won’t hold the same importance as the third.
Last August, for the first (and hopefully only) time, the Ellis Park Derby served as a key prep for a couple of Triple Crown races. That’s because the Kentucky Derby and Preakness had been postponed to September and October, respectively, due to the pandemic. (The Belmont Stakes had already been run in June.)
Art Collector won the 2020 Ellis Park Derby following a similarly dominant victory in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in July. From there, the colt missed the Kentucky Derby because of an untimely hoof injury prior to finishing fourth as the second choice in the Preakness.
Not surprisingly, the prospective field for the $200,000 Ellis Park Derby lacks a horse the caliber of Art Collector. Now the showcase race on the biggest day of the summer meet, the Ellis Derby is expected to get six or seven 3-year-olds, led by Colonel Bowman, Starrininmydreams, There Goes Harvard, and Sermononthemount.
The Ellis Derby was a one-mile race for its first two runnings but was lengthened to 1 1/8 miles last year to make it a more appropriate Kentucky Derby prep. It is 1 1/8 miles again this year, although Ellis racing secretary Dan Bork said the possibility of going back to one mile in 2022 will be taken into consideration.
Four other stakes also will be run Sunday – the $125,000 Groupie Doll, $125,000 Ellis Juvenile, $125,000 Ellis Debutante, and $100,000 Audubon Oaks. These will be the last stakes at a 31-day meet that runs through Sept. 4.
The Ellis Derby has replaced the Groupie Doll as the track’s signature event. The one-mile Groupie Doll, formerly known as the Gardenia, had been a Grade 3 for 20 years (1999-2018) before being downgraded ahead of the 2019 edition.
After nearly a week of oppressive heat and humidity in the Ellis Park area, there’s a more favorable forecast for Sunday with a projected high of 84.
Difficult stretch for Cox
It only seems that everything goes perfectly for Brad Cox, whose profile on the national racing scene continues to skyrocket. Cox has spent most of his summer at Saratoga, where on Saturday the 40-year-old trainer won the Grade 1 Whitney with Knicks Go.
Cox was the leading trainer at the Churchill Downs spring meet and begins this week leading the Ellis Park standings with 12 wins. But the recent death of one of his top older horses, Owendale, and a flurry of beaten favorites at Ellis has kept Cox’s feet on the ground.
“It’s a humbling game,” Cox said. “Nobody ever said it wasn’t.”
Owendale, owned by Rupp Racing, died from complications of colic. The 5-year-old horse by Into Mischief won four stakes from 23 starts, including the Lexington, Ohio Derby, and Oklahoma Derby in 2019, and earned $1,538,435.
Cox, with Jorgito Abrego as his Ellis assistant, has won with 2 of 16 starters since July 25 – including Shared Sense winning the Tri-State on Saturday – but eight of those have been losing favorites. That doesn’t include Hieronymus, who was favored before being scratched by the state veterinarian just prior to the Mint Million Preview being run Sunday.
“I don’t really know why he was scratched,” Cox. said “I saw video of him back at the barn afterward and he looked fine to me.”
Churchill stakes schedule
Churchill Downs has released the stakes schedules for the September and fall meets with numerous changes from the status quo because racing can’t be conducted on the turf course, which is is undergoing a $10 million renovation.
More than $7 million in purses is available in the 22 stakes to be run during the 12-day September meet (Sept. 16-Oct. 3) and 21-day fall meet (Oct. 31-Nov. 28). A handful of new stakes have been added to fill the turf void, while a number of longstanding fixtures received substantial purse increases, including the Grade 1 Clark going from $500,000 to $750,000.
The Churchill barn area, closed since July 5, will reopen Sept. 8, with training available the following morning.
◗ Ahead of a big Sunday at Ellis, allowances serve as highlights Friday and Saturday. A $53,000 turf mile is the only allowance Friday, while a $52,000 main-track sprint is the only allowance Saturday. Both go as race 7 on eight-race cards. First post every day at Ellis is 12:50 p.m. Central.
◗ Ellis will present a casual conversation and friendly banter between trainers D. Wayne Lukas and Dale Romans prior to the races Saturday in the beer-garden pavilion. Starting time is 11 a.m. Central.
◗ James Lopez, the former jockey who last summer was the regular exercise rider for Art Collector, died Sunday in San Antonio at age 43. Lopez rode mostly in Kentucky and Louisiana, winning 1,077 races from 1995-2011.