Flavius favored to repeat in Mint Million
It wasn’t like he’d been holding a grudge or anything against Kentucky Downs, but Chad Brown finally sent some horses last year to the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky.
Before being represented by three winners – including two in stakes – from seven starters at the 2020 meet, Brown had just one prior start at Kentucky Downs, that being a horse that was unplaced in 2015. His reluctance to participate at Kentucky Downs mostly involved the timing of the meet, as it comes hard on the heels of Saratoga, where he tends to max out his stable. His loyalty to the New York Racing Association also was a contributing factor.
But with purses at Kentucky Downs having soared to the irresistible levels that they have, Brown relented. He won a maiden race with Fluffy Socks, an eventual graded winner, and he won the Grade 3 Ladies Turf with Regal Glory. His other winner was Flavius, who on Monday will become Brown’s first starter at the 2021 meet when going postward as the favorite in the Grade 3 Mint Million, the first of three $1 million races at a six-day meet that began Sunday.
Flavius won last year when the race was known as the Tourist Mile, earning a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 105 with an eye-catching mid-race rally under Javier Castellano. In the year that has passed, Flavius was defeated in all four of his subsequent starts before returning to peak form last month with a front-running triumph that equated to a 103 Beyer in the restricted Lure Stakes at Saratoga, where Brown will wrap up another huge meet as leading trainer on Monday.
Flavius, a 6-year-old ridgling, will break from the outside post in a field of 11 in the Mint Million. With Castellano in from New York to ride again, the Juddmonte Farms homebred should take plenty of beating, assuming he can once again trip out cleanly in the one-turn race over what is expected to be firm going.
Surely the top threat to Flavius is Somelikeithotbrown (post 9, Jose Ortiz), the accomplished New York-bred who will be competing for what equates to a $550,000 purse when ineligible for $450,000 in Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund bonuses. A cleverly named 5-year-old horse by Big Brown out of Marilyn Monroan, Somelikeithotbrown is back in form after winning the Grade 2 Dinner Party on the May 15 Preakness card at Pimlico and finishing a sharp second in his most recent try, the Grade 2 Wise Dan on June 26, closing day of the Churchill Downs spring meet.
Somelikeithotbrown will be saddled by Mike Maker, who began the meet as easily the all-time leading trainer in track history with 63 wins.
“He’s been training really well since the Wise Dan” at the Trackside training center in Louisville, Maker said.
:: Get DRF's free 2021 Kentucky Downs Player's Guide
Bizzee Channel (post 7, Florent Geroux), in from Chicago for Larry Rivelli following a fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Mister D., seems the most likely pacesetter in this 24th running of the Mint Million, with Somelikeithotbrown and longshots Betwithbothhands and Mutakatif in closest attendance. Not much farther behind, Castellano figures to have Flavius in a comfortable rhythm as the field makes its way down the long backstretch run and into the sweeping turn. It’ll take a big effort to hold off the favorite down the homestretch.
The Mint Million is the 10th of 11 races on a Labor Day card expected to be run under sunny skies, with temperatures peaking in the low 80s. First post is 12:15 p.m. Central, with the feature going at 5:25.
The Mint Million is part of an all-stakes pick three to end the card, along with the $500,000 Aristocrat Juvenile Fillies (race 9) and $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile (race 11). Five allowances (races 2, 5, 6, 7, 8) precede the stakes on an outstanding program.
After Monday, four cards remain at Kentucky Downs – Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Churchill starts a 12-day meet Sept. 16.
Lanerie sore after spill
Corey Lanerie took off his mounts on the final program of the 31-day Ellis Park meet on Saturday following a spill in the last race Friday at the western Kentucky track. Lanerie’s agent, Cory Prewitt, said the jockey was experiencing shoulder pain when examined Friday night by a physician in the local area.
“Nothing is broke,” said Prewitt, adding Lanerie hopes to fulfill his four mounts at Kentucky Downs on Monday, his next scheduled day to ride.
Lanerie, a career winner of 4,845 races, was aboard Bamalama when the 3-year-old colt broke down in midstretch of the one-mile turf race for maidens. No other horses or jockeys were involved. Bamalama, trained by Brian Williamson, had to be euthanized.