Hawthorne: Brueggemann, Midwest Thoroughbreds take two stakes for Illinois-breds

STICKNEY, Ill. -- Roger Brueggemann, Hawthorne’s runaway leading trainer, and Midwest Thoroughbreds, North America’s runaway leading owner by wins, swept the two Illinois-bred stakes races on Saturday at Hawthorne. Work All Week won the Lightning Jet Handicap, while Missjeanlouise captured the Powerless Handicap for the second straight season.

In the $84,375 Lightning Jet, Work All Week scored an overdue first stakes win in Chicago, taking the lead a few strides into the six-furlong race and going on to a 1 1/2-length victory over Four Left Feet.

Work All Week won for the seventh time in nine starts, and he has lost only once in a one-turn race and on the main track. That surprising defeat came in his only previous stakes in Chicago, the Addison Cammack this summer at Arlington, where Work All Week was undone by a hot early tempo and tagged in the final jumps by Sweet Luca.

No such compromising circumstances came into play late Saturday afternoon at drizzly Hawthorne, where Work All Week, breaking from an advantageous outside post, only needed to outrun 86-1 shot Vbreeze to make the front in the Lightning Jet. He and jockey Cisco Torres did so with relative ease, crossing over to set splits of 22.23 seconds for the first quarter-mile and 45.28 seconds for the opening half. Vbreeze dropped away tamely with only mild challenges thrown at Work All Week in the final quarter-mile, the best of them from Four Left Feet, who rallied at odds of 17-1 from last to finish second by one length over Sweet Luca. Work All Week, who never changed leads after straightening for home, was timed in 1:09.56 for six furlongs over a fast track that had taken minimal rain.

The heavy favorite, Work All Week paid just $2.80, a common theme from a horse who has been an odds-on favorite in six of his nine starts. Owner Midwest Thoroughbreds acquires most of its runners through the claim box, but it bred Work All Week, a 4-year-old gelding by City Zip and out of Danzig Matilda, by Repriced. Work All Week didn’t debut until late in his 3-year-old season last year, and has done all his damage this year at 4, with 7 wins and a second from 8 races.

Missjeanlouise ($4.80) beat Illinois-bred fillies and mares in similar front-running fashion, ceding her very early lead to Kel’s Dreamer and taking up a two-wide pressing position through an opening quarter-mile in 22.04 seconds. Missjeanlouise easily shrugged off her pace rival before the quarter pole, and after getting her first half in 45.27 seconds she ran alone through the stretch, winning by 1 3/4 lengths and stopping the timer in 1:10.42 for six furlongs over a track downgraded to wet-fast just before the Powerless.

A 5-year-old Victory Gallop mare claimed in June 2012 for $40,000, Missjeanlouise won the 2012 Powerless after a layoff of almost four months. This year she had last raced on Oct. 18 and was surprisingly sharp Saturday, abandoning her typical stalking tactics to win for the seventh time in 21 starts.