Igniter faces another talented Brown runner back at one turn
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Igniter beat a well-regarded runner from the Chad Brown barn to win his first race. He’ll likely have to do the same on Wednesday if he is to win his second.
Igniter, returning to a one-turn race, will face Hedge Ratio and five other 3-year-olds in a first-level allowance/optional $100,000 claiming race that goes as race 3 on Wednesday’s nine-race card.
Igniter, a son of Volatile owned and bred by Three Chimneys and trained by Rick Dutrow, won a one-mile race at Aqueduct by one length over the Brown-trained Rebel Instinct. That horse, and two others, came back in their next starts to win their maidens.
Igniter ran back in the Grade 2 Remsen, where he may have found the 1 1/8 miles – and/or the competition – a bit too difficult and finished sixth, beaten 9 1/2 lengths by Paladin.
Dutrow said other than a minor issue at the gate, he didn’t see any real excuse for Igniter, and he hopes to learn a little bit more about where he’s at with the horse on Wednesday.
“We’re kind of regrouping a little bit, backing up to where he did produce two very good runs,” Dutrow said. “Seven-eighths, at the end of the day, might be his distance, maybe a mile might be his game.”
Brown sends out Hedge Ratio, a son of Speightstown who won his maiden on Nov. 22 in what was his third career start.
Brown said he misread this horse in that he thought he might have been a turf miler. After a fifth-place finish in such a race at Saratoga, Brown switched him to dirt, where he ran fourth behind Renegade and Paladin in an Oct. 17 maiden race before winning a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race in the mud by 4 1/4 lengths.
Our Magical Moon, who finished second in that race, came back to win his maiden by five lengths on Dec. 13 at Oaklawn Park. Complex Charlie, who was fourth in that Nov. 22 race, came back to run fourth in his next start but improved his Beyer Speed Figure by 14 points.
“I got too cute making him a turf miler,” Brown said. “Got him back to one turn on the dirt and he showed his best stuff. If anything, I held the horse back from developing.”
Hedge Ratio will break from the rail on Wednesday.
The Maryland-bred Tartabull caught a couple of buzz saws – Ewing and Talkin – during the summer at Saratoga. Sent to Laurel by trainer Chad Summers, he won a Maryland-bred maiden race Oct. 25 and then was third, beaten three-quarters of a length, in the Maryland Juvenile Stakes.
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