Here Mi Song makes annual appearance in Hall Memorial
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Every racetrack has its traditions. One of those at Ellis Park is the appearance every summer of Here Mi Song, who has made at least one start here every summer since 2021. Saturday, he starts in the $175,000 Jeff Hall Memorial for older sprinters for the fifth consecutive year, looking to add another victory in the race he claimed in both 2023 and 2024.
Here Mi Song is one of two previous winners expected to start in this year’s Hall Memorial. A field of 10 was entered for Saturday’s race, but is likely to be reduced by at least one. Trainer David Jacobson entered the pair of Banishing, the defending winner of this race, and Durante. Both were cross-entered in the Mr. Prospector Stakes on Friday at Monmouth Park, but Jacobson indicated that Banishing will run at Ellis, while Durante will not race this week, taking time off due to a quarter crack.
The 8-year-old Here Mi Song, a homebred for Nathan Hayden and trained by Billy Stinson, is a millionaire who will make his 36th career start on Saturday. Also the winner of the Grade 3 Commonwealth in 2023 at Keeneland, he holds a career record of 10-4-1-1 at Ellis Park. After finishing fifth in the 2022 edition of the Hall Memorial, he won the race in 2023 and 2024. He was third, beaten less than two lengths, last year as Banishing won by a nose over the classy Booth.
The Hall Memorial kicked off a relatively consistent second half to Here Mi Song’s 2025 campaign. He got in another start at Ellis, winning an allowance/optional-claiming race, then was second in the Louisville Thoroughbred Society at Churchill Downs. The winner was Bentornato, who went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Meanwhile, Here Mi Song went on to finish fourth in the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland.
This will, thus, be Here Mi Song’s first start in well over nine months – and in the past, he has seemed to take a race to find his stride off a layoff. He got on the work tab back in April, and his six most recent works have come at Ellis, including multiple bullet moves.
Fellow veteran Banishing has earned more than $2.9 million, while winning a third of his 30 career starts. Last year was his best season, as he won the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic and Grade 3 Oaklawn Mile along with the Hall Memorial. His five other stakes placings included a second by a neck to Mindframe in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs in a blanket finish in a very strong field, finishing in a dead heat with Nysos, a head in front of Book’em Danno in fourth.
This year, Banishing won the Group 2 Godolphin Mile. However, in his return to the U.S. in the Churchill Downs, he bore out badly on the far turn and wound up being eased in upper stretch, although he was unscathed, jogging back and walking off under his own power. He was back on the work tab less than three weeks later, and has worked steadily since.
Speed King is the other graded stakes winner in this field, looking to recapture the form that saw him win the Grade 3 Southwest in early 2025. He won an allowance race two back.
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