Hit Show edges past Cooke Creek to win Lukas Classic
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Saudi Crown looked like trainer Brad Cox’s sure stakes winner Saturday night at Churchill Downs. He never left the barn, scratched from the Ack Ack Stakes with a foot issue, but Cox won a stakes race nonetheless when Hit Show ran down pacesetting Cooke Creek to land the Grade 2, $500,000 Lukas Classic by a short neck.
Hit Show stalked the pace under Florent Geroux, came off the fence partway around the second of the Lukas Classic’s two turns, clipped past Warrior Johny at the quarter pole, and had dead aim on pacesetting Cooke Creek at the three-sixteenths marker. But instead of gliding to the lead and on to a comfortable victory, Hit Show had to work for the money.
Luis Saez took Cooke Creek out to the center of the track to engage Hit Show, and Cooke Creek, claimed for just $40,000 in late May, was up for a tussle, pushing Hit Show all the way to the wire before finally succumbing.
“He made a good move around the turn, it was a nice stretch duel down the lane, and fortunately he came out on top,” Cox said.
Hit Show, making his first start since being purchased from Gary and Mary West by Wathnan Racing, scored a stakes double having won the West Virginia Governor’s last month. The 4-year-old colt, by Candy Ride out of Actress, by Tapit, won for the sixth time in 13 starts and paid $8.56 as the second choice. Cooke Creek finished well clear of third-place Rattle N Roll, who raced for the first time in a year. Disarm, the 9-5 favorite, lagged near the rear of the field, made a mild bid in upper stretch, dived to the inside before the furlong marker, but could do no better than fourth.
Running over a sloppy, sealed track, Hit Show clocked 1:50.44. Seventh as the favorite in the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker two races back, a step back from a solid comeback run following an extended layoff, Hit Show got back to his best again Saturday.
“He’s kind of thrown us a curveball here and there,” Cox said.
On a night when his stablemate, Saudi Crown, never got off the bench, Hit Show made solid contact in the Lukas Classic.
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