He Hate Me running with tag for first time

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s been more than three years since He Hate Me carried the Sagamore Farm silks to victory in the Tremont Stakes at Belmont Park. Expectations have been tempered since then, especially since the now 5-year-old gelding has gone nearly a year since his last win.

“When he won the Tremont, we thought he might be pretty special,” Sagamore president Hunter Rankin said. “But eventually they do all find their level.”

To that point, He Hate Me will make his first start for a claiming tag when the final week of the Churchill Downs spring meet gets under way Thursday with a nine-race card. With leading jockey Tyler Gaffalione aboard for trainer Stan Hough, He Hate Me will break from the outside post in a field of nine in the eighth race, an $85,000 sprint with a third-level allowance condition and an $80,000 claiming option.

While facing such notables as Vekoma and Killybegs Captain along the way, He Hate Me has tended to perform creditably while coming up shy in his last seven starts, all stakes, since he won a Saratoga allowance last July.

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“He’s run into some pretty good horses,” Rankin said. “He’s very competitive and tries really hard, but there aren’t a lot of places to go with him. We’re not trying to lose him, and we debated about whether or not we should even risk him for the tag. But either you keep running him in stakes or you try something like this.”

He Hate Me is the 4-1 second choice on the Churchill morning line in what shapes up as a very well-matched feature, right behind Mucho (7-2) and just ahead of Bourbon Calling and Admiral Lynch (both 9-2).

The only other allowance of the day directly precedes the feature as race 7. It’s an $83,000 second-level race that also looks like a real scramble, given that the morning-line choice, Rockin Ready, also is pegged at the relatively high odds of 7-2 among seven fillies and mares set to go a one-turn mile.

Both allowances are part of the 20-cent Single 6 (races 4-9), which starts the week with a jackpot of just $5,552 after being emptied Friday to the tune of $228,178.

First post every day is 1 p.m. Eastern. The Thursday forecast calls for sunshine and a high of 84. Closing day is Sunday.