Lovell doubles up with pair of turf-sprint stakes winners
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Michelle Lovell was exhausted Monday morning, but what else is new? It’s a chronic state for Thoroughbred trainers who tend to work morning, noon, and night.
“I’m tired, but I’m still excited,” said Lovell. “It’s a good thing.”
Lovell was particularly overwhelmed last weekend when reveling in the best 48-hour span of her training career. She watched Thursday from Louisville as Change of Control rallied to win the Grade 3 Intercontinental Stakes at Belmont Park with Colby Hernandez up. Just Might then followed with a front-running score Saturday in the Mighty Beau at her home track, Churchill Downs, also with Hernandez aboard. The whirlwind of success left Lovell trying to catch up to all the texts and voicemails left on her cell phone.
“After Change of Control won, it was huge,” she said. “It took me all day and night to answer back. I had a lot of well-wishers. It was great.”
The Intercontinental, run at seven furlongs on turf, is her second graded win, following Fault in the Grade 3 Pucker Up on the 2017 Arlington Million undercard. Change of Control, a 5-year-old Fed Biz mare, is owned by the father-son team of Roddy and Perry Harrison of Texas.
Just Might is co-owned by Lovell and Robert Griffon, a retired doctor also from Texas. The Mighty Beau, a five-furlong turf race, was the third ungraded stakes win for the 5-year-old Justin Phillip gelding.
After graduating high school in Georgia, Lovell groomed and broke yearlings and worked as an exercise rider. From 1989-94, when still known as Michelle Hanley, she rode races, booting home 119 winners; she also won 23 more races in a comeback year of 1999. She saddled her first winner as a trainer at Retama Park in 2003, eventually moving from the Mid-South to Kentucky in 2011 while still wintering at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
Regarding long-term goals for Change of Control and Just Might, Lovell has an eye on the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, which will be run at five furlongs at Del Mar on Nov. 6, “but it would depend on if they can take us there,” she said. “The fact Change of Control showed us she can stretch out, it opens up a lot of opportunities for her. Both of them are just 5, and they’ve just kind of matured, and they’re both really sound, good-quality horses. Sprinting in the Breeders’ Cup is a huge ask, so we’ll see.”
Change of Control, now a three-time stakes winner, would be turning back to six furlongs when likely to make her next start in the Grade 2 Royal North on Aug. 1 at Woodbine, said Lovell. Just Might could resurface in the July 26 Da Hoss at Colonial Downs, where Lovell is taking her stable during a nine-week period starting July 5 when the Churchill barn area is evacuated while the turf course undergoes a complete renovation.
Hernandez, based mostly in his native Louisiana for most of his 15-year riding career, now has won 74 stakes, although the Intercontinental was his first graded triumph and one that came in his first-ever ride in the state of New York.