Foley, Walsh have top contenders in deep allowance
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Greg Foley and Brendan Walsh carved up the two stakes Saturday night at Churchill Downs, and with the lights turned back on when a five-day week gets under way Thursday with twilight racing and a 5 p.m. post, the veteran trainers will go head to head in the nominal feature.
Foley sends out Coltonator in what shapes up as an ultra-deep second-level allowance going seven furlongs worth $104,000, while Walsh counters with Banks Island. Both Kentucky-bred geldings were narrowly defeated in their respective last starts for this same condition.
Coltonator will have Corey Lanerie aboard breaking from post 5 in the seventh of eight races, just to the outside of Banks Island in a full field of 12 3-year-olds and upward.
Saturday night, Foley won the Winning Colors with Sconsin, and Walsh countered a couple of hours later with Temple City Terror in the Keertana.
Coltonator, a 5-year-old son of Congrats, has been first or second in 11 of 23 starts, a handful of them in the upper-claiming ranks. He earned a career-high 94 Beyer Speed Figure while beaten just a head by the Al Stall Jr.-trained Sir Alfred James here April 27, the lone Tuesday card of a 38-day spring meet.
Banks Island, a gray Godolphin homebred, returned from a 10-month layoff on April 11 at Keeneland and was just a neck shy of catching Get the Prize, also trained by Stall. The 4-year-old son of Tapit shows four Churchill breezes in the interim.
As good as their last races were, Coltonator and Banks Island are just two of numerous contenders amid a lineup in which, remarkably, all 10 of their opponents have started in at least one stakes.
“It sure is a tough race,” said Foley. “Our horse is a hard knocker and he’s good right now, but it sure got some nice horses for a two-other-than.”
One of those, Dean Martini (post 3, Colby Hernandez), won the Grade 3 Ohio Derby last summer, while the only 3-year-old in the field Whiskey Double (post 2, Ricardo Santana Jr.) ran well enough to finish third behind his highly accomplished Steve Asmussen stablemate Jackie’s Warrior in a terrific renewal of the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile earlier this month.
Other possibilities include Answer In (post 1, Florent Geroux), a sharp last-out winner for Brad Cox; Necker Island (post 8, Mitchell Murrill), second in an April 23 allowance at Oaklawn Park in his first start since the 2020 Kentucky Derby; and Borracho (post 11, James Graham), a romping last-out winner and one of three entered here for an optional $62,500 claiming tag.
The card kicks off a week that runs through the Memorial Day holiday and peaks with six stakes on Saturday. A slight chance of thundershowers and a daytime high of 88 are in the long-range forecast for Thursday. First post the rest of the week is 12:45.