Home Run Kitten hails from longshot barn

ARCADIA, Calif. – Ignore Home Run Kitten at your own risk in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 1.

Consider the record of his trainer, David Hofmans, in the Breeders’ Cup over the last two decades. Hofmans has won 3 of 15 career starts in the Breeders’ Cup, and the winners all have been longshots.

Hofmans won the 1996 Classic with Alphabet Soup (who paid $41.70), the 2003 Distaff with Adoration ($83.40), and the 2008 Turf Sprint here with Desert Code ($75). Home Run Kitten figures to be about 15-1 or 20-1 in a crowded BC Turf Sprint field.

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Owned by Tarabilla Farms, Home Run Kitten won the second stakes of his career, and his first graded stakes, with an impressive late rally in the Grade 3 Eddie D Stakes here on Sept. 26. The Eddie D came over the 6 1/2-furlong hillside turf course, which will be used for the BC Turf Sprint. Home Run Kitten, a 3-year-old, closed from last in an 11-horse field to win by a nose over the 5-year-old mare Ambitious Brew.

Hofmans hopes Home Run Kitten can make a similar late run in the BC Turf Sprint.

“He’s three and he’s just coming around,” Hofmans said. “I think there is a lot of speed in there.”

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Home Run Kitten is unbeaten on the hillside turf course, having defeated maidens here in January on the course. Later, he won the Singletary Stakes at a mile on turf in June.

A full field of 14 is expected for the BC Turf Sprint. The race is expected to be led by Reneesgotzip, who was second in the 2013 BC Turf Sprint, and the 3-year-old No Nay Never, a stakes winner in England, France, and Kentucky in his five-race career.