Just a Touch showing excellent form as Metropolitan Handicap approaches
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About 2 1/2 hours before First Mission won the $1.25 million Oaklawn Handicap, his trainer, Brad Cox, won a second-level Keeneland allowance race with a horse who might turn out to be the equal of First Mission – or any other older dirt-route horse in North America.
He’ll get a chance to start making that case in his intended next start, the Grade 1, $1 million Metropolitan Handicap on June 7 at Saratoga.
Just a Touch made it two blowout wins from two outings as a 4-year-old by winning Saturday’s eighth race by seven lengths. Just a Touch made an early lead, raced along the rail down the backstretch with a rival just ahead and outside him, overpowered the pace foe going into the far turn, took a breather after opening up, and at the top of the stretch, turned loose by Florent Geroux, buried his competition.
Ridden out the last half-furlong, Just a Touch off a 47.66 half-mile split clocked 1:50.34 for 1 1/8 miles, and while those times on the surface might not appear strong, they were. Keeneland’s main track throughout last week played far slower than par and Just a Touch, who got a 102 Beyer Speed Figure walloping first-level allowance foes returning from a long layoff in March at Fair Grounds, earned a career-best 104 Beyer.
“He’s a good horse. I’m not going to say too much. I’m going to let him do the rest of the talking,” Cox said Sunday.
Four-year-old Just a Touch debuted in late January of his 3-year-old season in a Fair Grounds maiden sprint , finished second going a one-turn mile in the Gotham Stakes, then was second behind eventual champion 3-year-old Sierra Leone in the Blue Grass Stakes. Last of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, he came back two months later and finished second as the odds-on favorite in the Iowa Derby, and then was done for the year.
“It all caught up with him,” Cox said of the compressed schedule.
Cox has taken the opposite approach this time, eschewing the Alysheba Stakes next month at Churchill Downs for Saturday’s allowance race.
“I’m trying to have a horse for all year. All I wanted this time was a building block. I didn’t need to run him in the Alysheba and face a lot of pressure with a long homestretch,” Cox said.
Cox also trains Hit Show, winner of the Dubai World Cup, and has Grade 1 winner Highland Falls back breezing at Churchill . Highland Falls won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup by four lengths, but sputtered in his next start, a ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. After a winter break, Highland Falls joined Cox’s string at Churchill, where he worked April 13 and again on April 20. Cox said it’s too soon to point Highland Falls to a specific race.
Also on the Cox comeback trail at Churchill are Dragoon Guard, winner of the Indiana Derby and West Virginia Derby last year, and crack sprinter Federal Judge, who annexed the Phoenix Stakes last fall at Keeneland with a 106 Beyer before finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
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