Gouverneur Morris will be tested in Breeders' Futurity

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Barry Irwin refuses to say too much too soon.

“I am not going to hype this horse,” Irwin said of Gouverneur Morris, who makes his second career start as one of the likely favorites Saturday in the Grade 1, $500,000 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland.

Irwin heads a Team Valor International partnership that owns Gouverneur Morris with WinStar Farm. Off a nine-length romp in his career debut on closing day at Saratoga, the son of the hot young sire Constitution already is generating considerable backstretch buzz, even if Irwin declines to join in fully.

“The thing about his first start is that he didn’t do a whole lot right, and still he won off by himself,” said Irwin.

Trained by Todd Pletcher, Gouverneur Morris will take the giant leap from maiden-sprint winner in the slop to a Grade 1 race going two turns over what surely will be a fast track amid mid-80s temperatures. As a degree of added difficulty, the colt has drawn the outside post in a field of 10 in the 1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Futurity, a Win and You’re In toward the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.

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It’s the sort of tricky transition that 2-year-olds have negotiated succesfully in the past for Pletcher, although “obviously you don’t know for sure until they show you,” said Irwin.

“This horse is really turning people on, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said.

Javier Castellano, who rode Constitution to victory in such major races as the Florida Derby and Donn Handicap, has the call on Gouverneur Morris, whose 83 Beyer Speed Figure is surpassed among this field only by the 86 earned in an Aug. 24 maiden win at Saratoga by Tap It to Win, the only ridgling in a lineup otherwise composed entirely of colts.

Tap It to Win (post 1, Tyler Gaffalione), a Live Oak Stud homebred, is trained by Mark Casse, who won the 2016 Breeders’ Futurity with Classic Empire, the eventual divisional champion. Tap It to Win, like Gouverneur Morris and five others in here, is making his first start outside the maiden ranks.

In fact, only one starter is a stakes winner – By Your Side (post 2, Corey Lanerie), who captured the Grade 3 Sanford at Saratoga with a 74 Beyer prior to finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Hopeful in the closing-day slop at Saratoga.

“He didn’t seem to care much for the track when he ran in the Hopeful,” said Eddie Kenneally, who trains By Your Side for Anderson Stables. “He’s trained really, really well over the track here at Keeneland. He had a couple of bullets since coming back from Saratoga,” referring to fast works on Sept. 18 and 27.

Other colts likely to garner ample tote attention are Ajaaweed (post 8, Joel Rosario), a sharp maiden winner going a one-turn mile at Belmont last month for owner-breeder Shadwell Stable; a second Casse trainee, Enforceable (post 5, Florent Geroux), whose maiden win going 1 1/8 miles on Aug. 22 at Saratoga marks him as the only starter to have won around two turns; and Maxfield (post 6, Jose Ortiz), a Godolphin homebred who prevailed at first asking on the Iroquois Stakes undercard last month at Churchill Downs.

Rounding out the cast are Life On the Road, King Theo, American Butterfly, and January Won.

King Theo, a Florida shipper, is the lone supplementary entry, having been made eligible by way of a late $15,000 payment.

The Breeders’ Futurity, sponsored since 2014 by Claiborne, was won last year by Knicks Go, a 70-1 shot who proceeded to run second in the BC Juvenile at 40-1. Prior winners of the race, inaugurated in 1910 at the old Kentucky Association track, include such standouts as Whirlaway (1940), Round Table (1956), Swale (1983), and Favorite Trick (1997). It’s the ninth race Saturday, with post time of 5:39 p.m. Eastern.

Main-track races at 1 1/16 miles begin and end at what is otherwise the sixteenth pole.

As for the unusual name Gouverneur Morris, the colt is named for the American statesman who wrote much of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and was a frequent racegoer prior to his death in 1816.