Graham, Kenneally enjoy cheers after Grade 1 wins
Eddie Kenneally and James Graham didn’t win any races Sunday at Ellis Park, and still they had a very good day.
Returning to their home circuit of Kentucky for the biggest day of the summer meet at Ellis in western Kentucky, both Irishmen received hero’s welcomes for winning Grade 1 races less than 24 hours earlier.
Saturday at Arlington Park in suburban Chicago, Graham gave a crafty ride aboard Two Emmys in pulling a wire-to-wire upset of the $600,000 Mister D. at 27-1. A race earlier, Kenneally had sent out Point Me By for a rallying triumph as the favorite in the $300,000 Bruce D.
Graham and Kenneally were back at work Sunday at Ellis, scarcely able to move among fellow horsemen and the sizable ontrack crowd without getting a handshake or backslap.
“It was a great day, a lot of fun,” Graham said of his return to Arlington, where he spent his formative years riding in the United States with agent Britt McGehee, who died in January 2016.
McGehee also was close pals with Hugh Robertson, trainer of Two Emmys.
“That was the only thing missing, that Britt wasn’t with us to enjoy it,” said Graham, 42.
The Bruce D. was the fifth Grade 1 win for Graham, whose American career began in 2003. Graham, represented in recent years by Frank Bernis, went winless in four Sunday mounts at Ellis before traveling Monday to win the $75,000 Lady Erie at Presque Isle Downs aboard Bullseye Beauty for another Irish-born trainer, Andrew McKeever.
For Kenneally, the one-mile Bruce D. was his seventh Grade 1 win in a training career dating to 1993. Owned by his longtime clients, the Homewrecker Stable of Ron and Ricki Rashinski, Point Me By drew off with flair making his stakes debut following a Churchill Downs maiden win and a close fourth-place finish in a Saratoga allowance last month. The Point of Entry colt earned an 89 Beyer Speed Figure.
Kenneally said Tuesday he is confident Point Me By “will stretch out” and that the 3-year-old’s probable next start will come in the Sept. 5 Dueling Grounds Derby going 1 5/16 miles at Kentucky Downs or the Sept. 18 Jockey Club Derby going 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park.
Kenneally was on hand Sunday to saddle Lady Kate in the secondary feature, the $123,679 Groupie Doll. Lady Kate won the 2020 Groupie Doll in front of an empty grandstand and nearly pulled a repeat in this latest renewal of the one-mile race, leading most of the way before being edged by a neck by Matera.
“I thought it was a very game effort, especially off the layoff” of more than four months, said Kenneally, 55. “I’m very happy with her.”
Matera, a $1.4 million yearling purchase in 2018 for the Don Alberto Stable, is now 3 for 3 since she was shipped East to trainer Brad Cox following a 1-for-4 start to her career in Southern California. The 4-year-old Tapit filly was produced by Miss Macy Sue, making her a half-sister to 2015 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map, now a successful sire, and two other stakes winners, Not This Time and Taylor S. Matera got an 82 Beyer.