Jerkens has Shaman Ghost, Effinex in Clark Handicap

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If two horses are better than one, well, Jimmy Jerkens’ chance of winning the Clark Handicap for the second straight year just got better.

Jerkens had initially planned to start only Shaman Ghost, and he confirmed Monday that he also has sent Effinex to Churchill Downs for Friday’s 143rd running of the $500,000 Clark, the traditional showcase race of the fall meet.

Effinex, the 2015 Clark winner for owner-breeder Russell Cohen’s Tri-Bone Stables, most recently was a distant seventh in the Nov. 5 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.

“I can’t find any concrete reason not to run him,” Jerkens said from New York. “It is back a little quick from a bad effort, but he’s been up and down his whole career. I’ve tried to keep him fresh since then and he’s actually done pretty well.”

Shaman Ghost, owned by Stronach Stables, was scratched from the BC Classic at Santa Anita after spiking a temperature.

“About 36 hours out from the race, he was very listless and not acting like himself, so we scratched,” Jerkens said. “Since then he’s been just great.”

Shaman Ghost does his best work on big race days. The colt won Canada’s premier event for 3-year-olds, the Queen’s Plate, as a 3-year-old in 2015, and his two stakes wins this year came on Belmont Stakes Day (Grade 2 Brooklyn) and the last Saturday of the Saratoga meet (Grade 1 Woodward).

Effinex (Junior Alvarado to ride) and Shaman Ghost (Javier Castellano) have been assigned 123 and 122 pounds, respectively, for the 1 1/8-mile Clark. Hoppertunity, the 2014 Clark winner for Bob Baffert, is the 124-pound highweight in a field also expected to get Noble Bird (121) and Gun Runner (118). Entries were to be taken and drawn Tuesday, with a field of about eight likely.

Also Friday, a rematch of Harmonize and Hawksmoor could be on tap in the Grade 2, $200,000 Mrs. Revere, which is on the Clark undercard for the first time.

Harmonize was second and Hawksmoor was third behind Time and Motion in a memorable renewal of the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last month at Keeneland. They’re expected as part of a big field of 3-year-old fillies in the 1 1/16-mile turf race.

Churchill racing secretary Ben Huffman said the decision to move the Mrs. Revere onto the Clark card was made “to bolster even further what’s already a great day of racing.” In prior years, the Mrs. Revere was a standalone feature held earlier in the fall meet.

◗ Back-to-back graded handicaps highlight a 12-race Thursday card that carries a special 11:30 a.m. post time for Thanksgiving. A field of 11 fillies and mares led by Grade 1 winner Include Betty is entered in the Grade 2, $200,000 Falls City Handicap (race 10), and an oversubscribed field of older turf horses will clash in the Grade 3, $100,000 River City Handicap (race 11).

The Pizza Man, the Illinois-bred 7-year-old with earnings of more than $2.1 million, will have Shaun Bridgmohan aboard when he carries high weight of 124 pounds in the River City.

Post time for the last Thursday race is 4:50.

◗ The first of four pools in the 2017 Kentucky Derby Future Wager will open Thursday at noon Eastern for a four-day run. The mutuel field, the 24th or “all others” option, is listed as a 5-2 morning-line favorite over Classic Empire (8-1) and Not This Time (8-1).

Concurrent to Pool 1, Churchill also is offering the Derby Sires Future Wager for the second year. Both pools run through Sunday.

◗ A four-win day last week has helped Brian Hernandez Jr. to tighten up the jockey standings at this fall meet. Corey Lanerie, the perennial leading rider in recent years, holds a 20-18 lead over Hernandez into the final five-day stretch.

Mike Maker leads all trainers with 10 wins, followed by Brad Cox and Rusty Arnold with seven apiece.

◗ Jon Court will begin his 56th birthday Wednesday just two wins from becoming the 71st jockey in North American racing history to ride 4,000 winners.

Court, who began riding in 1980 in his native Florida, also is on pace to surpass the $100 million milestone in mount earnings next year.

◗ Kickoff for the Kentucky vs. Louisville football game Saturday has been set for noon Eastern at nearby Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

With the Stars of Tomorrow program starting at 1, fans should be able to see both the game and the twin Grade 2 stakes for 2-year-olds, the Kentucky Jockey Club and Golden Rod.

◗ For the first time in years, Turfway Park in northern Kentucky will conduct racing on a five-day-a-week basis at its upcoming holiday meet, with Mondays and Tuesdays dark. The meet starts Nov. 30.

For the winter-spring meet that starts Jan. 1, four-day racing will be held in January and February (no Sundays) and three-day racing in March and April (no Wednesdays).