Hofburg steps forward in Curlin score

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Sometimes you just need to win a race.

While Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes is richer and more prestigious than Friday’s $100,000 Curlin Stakes, trainer Bill Mott was just happy to see Hofburg return to the winner’s circle, something he did by five lengths in the Curlin run in the slop at Saratoga.

Under Irad Ortiz Jr., Hofburg raced closer to the pace than usual and was wide throughout before taking command at the head of the lane and drawing away from Nicodemus to win for the first time since a March 3 maiden race at Gulfstream Park.

Since then, it’s been a second in the Florida Derby, seventh in the Kentucky Derby, and a third in the Belmont Stakes for Hofburg, a good-looking son of Tapit owned and bred by Juddmonte Farms.

“We’ve thrown him to the wolves the last three times. He’s coming out of three Grade 1 races and we haven’t won any of them, and I think we just wanted to do whatever we could to give the horse a chance to win a race,” Mott said. “I don’t think we want to keep running second, third, or fourth all the time.”

The Curlin will get Hofburg to the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers in four weeks having a relatively easy win under his belt. First run in 2009, the only Curlin winner to also win the Travers was V.E. Day in 2014.

There were positives and negatives to Hofburg’s performance. The pros were that he proved effective without having to come from so far back. Ortiz had Hofburg within two lengths of the front-running Madison’s Luna, who covered a half-mile in 47.81 seconds and six furlongs in 1:11.94. Hofburg was four wide down the backstretch.

“We wanted to be a little closer today," Ortiz said. "The track is sealed, not too many horses come from off the pace, we don’t want nobody to steal the race."

Ortiz said he didn’t worry about losing ground because Hofburg “looked like the best horse in the race. I don’t see any reason to be inside and covered up, or be between horses. I got the chance to put him in the clear in the first turn and I did.”

Nicodemus, making just his third career start, took over from Madison’s Luna at the five-sixteenths pole, but Hofburg quickly pounced on him and took the lead straightening away in the lane.

Perhaps a negative was that Ortiz had to hit Hofburg four times from the quarter pole to just inside the eighth pole before hand-riding him home.

“You’d like to see him dragging him through the stretch and never having to tap him with the whip, but I think he felt like maybe at that point he put his ears up and he wanted to teach him to go on and finish up the race,” Mott said.

Nicodemus finished second by nine lengths over Zing Zang. American Lincoln and Madison’s Luna completed the order of finish. Reride scratched to run in Saturday’s Jim Dandy.

Hofburg covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.18 and returned $2.50 as the 1-5 favorite.

Mott mentioned that Hofburg got anxious and agitated in the paddock, but attributed that from not having raced since June 9.

“I think he needed to run, needed to get over here and get a race over the track,” Mott said. “He’s generally a little calmer and cooler in the paddock. I believe the race will help him.”

Especially a winning one.