Hit Show surges to third straight graded-stakes win with Fayette
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LEXINGTON, Ky. - Hit Show continued the consistency that indicated he can move forward in the older horse division in the coming months by scoring his third straight graded win with a three-quarter-length score over Bolzy in the Grade 2, $350,000 Fayette Stakes for 3-year-olds and up, the feature on a sun-splashed closing Saturday at Keeneland.
Hit Show ($3.58) showed ability through his 3-year-old season, winning the Grade 3 Withers in February 2023, and running second in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial. Creditable efforts in the Kentucky Derby, in which Hit Show finished fifth, and the Belmont Stakes, in which he was fourth, followed.
After two unplaced graded stakes efforts to end his 3-year-old campaign. Hit Show went to the sidelines for a freshening. He returned with an allowance-optional claiming win in May at Churchill Downs, but then finished a puzzling seventh in the Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap.
"He was a very good 3-year-old, just maybe a cut below the top [group]," said trainer Brad Cox, who saddled his record-extending sixth stakes winner at this meet, and who secured his fifth straight Keeneland fall meet training title. "It was time to give him a break. He came back, he was really, really good at Churchill first race off the layoff. I still don't know what happened at Prairie Meadows - I loved the way he was training leading into that."
Hit Show rebounded to win the Grade 3 West Virginia Governor's Stakes by a half-length on Aug. 4, then annexed the Grade 2 Lukas Classic by a neck on Sept. 28 at his Churchill Downs base.
Like those two races, the Fayette score was accomplished by a narrow margin. Hit Show sat fifth and between horses after the opening six furlongs in 1:12.09 by Bolzy. He willingly threaded his way through horses on the far turn under regular rider Florent Geroux, made the lead in upper stretch, and inched away from a determined Bolzy in the final stages.
Cox and Geroux say the narrow margins are more indicative of Hit Show's personality than his ability level.
"Once he makes the lead and starts getting away from the other horses, he’ll kind of let them come back," Cox said. "Florent says once he feels the pressure, he keeps himself in front. But I think he’s a horse who feels comfortable being around another horse."
Hit Show completed the 1 1/8 miles on the fast main track in 1:50.33.
After the top two, it was four lengths back to Uno Mas Bourbon in third, followed, in order, by War Campaign, Heroic Move, Trademark, Howling Time, and Grand Aspen.
The Fayette was one of three stakes on closing day of the 17-day Keeneland fall meet. Racing on the Kentucky circuit moves to Churchill Downs for a 26-day fall meet beginning Sunday.
The Fayette is often used as a prep toward the richest stakes race of that meet, the Grade 2, $600,000 Clark on Nov. 29, and Cox said that would be a "logical spot" for Hit Show to target.
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