Fanshell Beach will be a handful on turf or dirt in Riverside Rush
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The weather forecast for Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., by Thursday had improved considerably since predictions earlier in the week seemed nearly certain the track would take an extended period of rain Friday night through Saturday afternoon. That bodes well for the chances of two Saturday sprint stakes staying on turf, but for the 2-year-old Fanshell Beach, it doesn’t really matter.
“She’s there to run!” trainer Wesley Ward said.
Grass or dirt, Fanshell Beach should prove a handful in the $200,000 Riverside Rush, carded for 5 1/2 furlongs on turf and restricted to 2-year-olds. The Riverside Rush goes as race 9 before the Saturday program ends with the $250,000 Hummingbird for older fillies and mares.
The Riverside Rush drew an overflow field of 15, with Fanshell Beach drawn in post 12 the last of the horses not on the also-eligible list.
“I love the outside draw – love it,” Ward said.
Fanshell Beach has loads of early speed, and it is nearly always better for a dedicated front-runner to break on the outside of her pace rivals.
By first-crop sire Corniche, Fanshell Beach campaigns for Hat Creek Racing and ran about as well as any 2-year-old at the Keeneland meet in April, winning a 4 1/2-furlong dirt race by more than five lengths. Ward took her Royal Ascot for the Norfolk Stakes over a straight five furlongs, a 21-runner contest that split into three sections within the first furlong with Fanshell Beach at the vanguard of the center group. She held gamely to the final 50 yards, finishing fifth while only three-quarters of a length from second.
“She ran better than I expected,” Ward said. “She’d had just a hair of a shin.”
Fanshell Beach returned to Ward’s farm across the street from Keeneland, did some swimming in the equine pool Ward built on the property, and was back on the work tab about a month after her race in England.
Arctic Wolf scored a sharp front-running debut win turf-sprinting at Aqueduct on June 18, after which he was privately purchased and turned over to trainer Jack Sisterson. He’s a pace player, as is Admiral’s Order, but Hey Tuff Guy might have the most speed in the race. Favored at 3-5 in his May 25 debut at Churchill Downs, Hey Tuff Guy won off by almost eight lengths, but he ran out of gas at the eighth pole in the six-furlong Bashford Manor on June 28 and faded to fifth as the even-money favorite.
“It was a real head shaker. He popped and stopped,” said trainer Brian Lynch. “We regrouped with him. I tried to work him in company and rate him, but I don’t think that’s what he wants to do. He’s a free-running horse.”
Hey Tuff Guy will stay in the race if it rains off and can contend on turf. His dam, Hotshot Anna, was an elite sprinter on synthetic surfaces and won a turf sprint stakes.
Ward said he’s likely to scratch Saturday Flirt from the Hummingbird in favor of a Saturday start at Colonial Downs, and the most likely Hummingbird winner on turf, Buttercream Babe, won’t run if the race rains off, trainer Rusty Arnold said.
Arnold only began training 5-year-old Buttercream Babe this season, cut her back from mile races to a sprint in April, and the mare won nicely in a Keeneland allowance. Buttercream Babe has more of a steady run than a quick burst, and connections hope to run her in a longer Kentucky Downs sprint later this summer.
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