Jim McKay Turf Sprint: Improving The Connector vs. The Critical Way
BALTIMORE – Saturday will be a very long day for Mark Hoffman, but the 63-year-old owner-trainer believes it’ll all be worthwhile. Hoffman is brimming with confidence that his latest stable star The Connector can win the $100,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint, one of the deepest races on the Preakness Day card at Pimlico.
“I wouldn’t trade horses with anybody in the race,” Hoffman said this week from New Jersey, from where he and The Connector will be leaving Monmouth Park before 4 a.m. Saturday in starting the three-hour trip to Old Hilltop. “I mean, my horse is only 4, and a lot of these other horses are older. But yes, I do think he’ll end up being as good as any of them. He’s really on his game right now.”
The Connector, with Jose Ortiz riding from post 2, has developed into a very useful turf sprinter since Hoffman purchased him privately last summer, winning five of his last eight starts while ascending the class ladder.
Among his strongest rivals Saturday is The Critical Way (post 4, Luis Saez), the 5-2 morning-line favorite in a field of 13 older horses set to go five furlongs over a turf course expected to be firm. Both The Connector and The Critical Way wintered at Tampa Bay Downs and have reached peak form, with The Critical Way having proven himself a worthy rival of Imprimis, one of the most accomplished turf-sprint specialists on the continent, in his last three starts.
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For Hoffman, who survived a rare disease called acromegaly when undergoing successful surgery in 1992, The Connector is becoming a success story along the lines of Hooh Why, a Grade 1-winning filly he co-owned about 10 years ago.
“This horse really became a real gentleman after I gelded him when I bought him,” said Hoffman. “He really started getting down to business.”
Other major players in the McKay include Completed Pass (post 13, Angel Cruz), a local standout who captured the King Leatherbury here three weeks ago for Claudio Gonzalez, a perennial leading trainer on this circuit, and Hollis (post 5, Irad Ortiz Jr.), a sharp last-out main-track winner at Oaklawn Park.
Because it attracted such a deep lineup, the McKay was slotted as race 10 on the 14-race card, making it a key link in several multi-race wagers ending with the Preakness (race 13). All of those horizontal bets can be expected to attract huge pools.
Whereas the McKay is an outstanding race, the same truly can’t be said for the first stakes of the day, the Grade 3, $200,000 Chick Lang (race 3), even with double the purse. Not only did the six-furlong race attract just six 3-year-olds, but it looks to be the domain of a big favorite in Jaxon Traveler (post 4, Irad Ortiz Jr.), a Maryland-bred whose trainer, Steve Asmussen, is shooting for his fifth victory in the Lang since 2008. Among those prior Asmussen winners were Mitole (2018), who was the sprint champion of 2019, and Yaupon (2020).
Jaxon Traveler, the 4-5 morning-line favorite, has won four of five career starts, with his only defeat coming by a head in his first start this year in the March 20 Gazebo at Oaklawn Park. The Munnings colt redeemed himself five weeks later when dominating the Bachelor at Oaklawn.
“He’s going to be hard to beat,” longtime Asmussen assistant Scott Blasi said in understatement.
If Jaxon Traveler is upset, his stablemate Mighty Mischief (post 2, Ricardo Santana Jr.) could be the one to do it. Bred and owned by Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt, the Into Mischief colt is the 5-2 second choice following back-to-back wins at Oaklawn.
Willy Boi (post 6, John Velazquez) figures as the main threat to the Asmussen duo. He ships in from Florida following a productive winter for trainer Jeff Engler. Rounding out the field are Palatial Times, Hemp, and Shackled Love.
The Lang is the second leg in the first pick five (races 2-6) of the day and the leadoff leg in the first pick four (races 3-6).
The McKay and Lang are named for two of the greatest figures in Maryland racing over the last half-century. McKay, the sportscasting legend who died in 2008, founded the Maryland Million series in 1986. Lang, who died in 2010, was the longtime Pimlico general manager widely credited for heightening the profile of this track’s signature race, earning him the moniker of “Mr. Preakness.”