Glatt invades with Judge Miller looking to upset Hanshin
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Southern California-based trainer Mark Glatt’s small Churchill Downs invasion this weekend could end in victory.
Glatt, for lack of great local opportunities this time of summer, he said, sent six horses to race during closing weekend of the Churchill spring meeting. Judge Miller in Sunday’s Hanshin Stakes is the last of them and might turn out to be the best Glatt bet of the weekend.
Judge Miller is one of eight entered in the $300,000 Hanshin, a one-turn dirt mile, and the Hanshin, one of five stakes on the card, could wind up a key cog as the third leg in Churchill’s Derby City Six wager. A jackpot-style bet that pays out fully only if there’s a single winning ticket, the Derby City Six coming into Friday’s card had a carryover pool of $1,265,687.60, and if there’s no winner Friday or Saturday, Sunday becomes a mandatory payout day. The bet has a base wager of 20 cents and spans the card’s last six races, 6-11.
The morning line pegs Saudi Crown the 9-5 favorite over 2-1 Banishing. Both rate as obvious contenders based on recent baseline performance level, but neither holds appeal at those prices.
A Godolphin homebred trained for his first nine starts by Brendan Walsh, Banishing went to auction last July and was purchased for $80,000 by trainer David Jacobson and co-owner Lawrence Roman. Call that money well spent. After being eased and vanned off in his first start for new connections, Banishing went 5-4-0 through his next nine races while earning about $760,000. He finished second in the Oaklawn Handicap going 1 1/8 miles around two turns and was second over seven furlongs in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes. But finally, in the Blame Stakes last month, Banishing took a step back, checking in fifth with no apparent excuse. While cutting back to the one-turn mile could help, Banishing’s banner days might be history.
Saudi Crown, who has purse earnings of about $3.4 million, finished second to Banishing in late March while pulling a tougher trip than the winner in the Oaklawn Mile, then came back to beat Mystik Dan making his most recent start May 3. Those races and the four before them came around two turns, but trainer Brad Cox believes Saudi Crown races at least as effectively in one-turn contests. He points to the one-mile Dwyer two summers ago, where Saudi Crown earned a career-best 106 Beyer Speed Figure, and the 2024 Saudi Cup, where Saudi Crown held a close third racing 1 1/8 miles for a $20 million purse. His Hanshin chances depend upon how hard he must work to lead or press the pace.
Cagliostro won the 2024 Hanshin but “is going to need the race,” trainer Cherie DeVaux said. DeVaux got Cagliostro back a couple of months ago after owner Wathnan Racing sent him to Dubai for the winter. Cagliostro ran well in January, worse on March 1, and was scratched sick from the Godolphin Mile on April 5. His owners decided to geld the horse not long after DeVaux began training him again, and DeVaux said Cagliostro put in an encouraging final Hanshin work.
Extra Anejo would benefit from a strong pace and can win if he runs back to his Commonwealth Stakes score in April at Keeneland. Trainer Steve Asmussen suggests drawing a line through the horse’s sloppy-track dud in the Churchill Downs Stakes.
“He’s absolutely a huge horse and definitely did not handle that track at all,” Asmussen said.
Which gets us back to Judge Miller. A lightly raced Curlin 5-year-old, Judge Miller held his own last summer in graded stakes over nine and 10 furlongs, but this horse looks more like a miler. His top Beyer, 106, came in a two-turn mile, and Judge Miller, returning from a layoff approaching one year, just had hit top gear when he got up to win a strong second-level 6 1/2-furlong allowance race May 4 at Santa Anita. Antonio Fresu can work out a ground-saving trip from post 2 – and make Glatt’s raiding party worth the trip.
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