Love'm Or Liam challenged by lack of pace
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Bill Mott has operated a Kentucky string for decades, his barn at Churchill Downs headed by longtime assistant trainer Kenny McCarthy. Sure, the summer “A” team generally sticks with Mott himself at Saratoga, but it’s not like these Kentucky horses are castoffs. Love’m Or Liam would be competitive racing in second-level turf route allowance races in New York, and he’s the one to beat in the featured eighth race Sunday at Ellis Park.
That Love’m Or Liam came up a relatively mild 5-2 morning-line favorite has less to do with his win candidacy than field size. A dozen horses were entered in the Sunday feature, a second-level allowance carded for 1 1/16 miles and open to $62,500 claimers.
Seven of the entrants run for the claiming price, including rail-drawn Baddest Good Boy, whose trainer, David Fawkes, is making like Mott, establishing a foothold in Kentucky. Fawkes has long based primarily in Florida and has horses stable at Gulfstream Park, but he has expanded his operation and has 15 stalls at Churchill right now.
“I’m working to get more. The purses are too good to avoid it,” Fawkes said.
Baddest Good Boy, as a Kentucky-bred, runs for a $104,000 purse, and his 12th career start will mark his first on turf. The surface switch comes after Baddest Good Boy hated having slop kicked in his face June 26 at Churchill, basically declining to participate. His previous fast-track form is much better – competitive here, if the horse takes to turf – but Fawkes is not looking for a rain-off onto dirt and said Baddest Good Boy comes out of the race if the race comes off turf.
“He doesn’t like kickback – does not like it at all,” Fawkes said, explaining the move onto grass.
Baddest Good Boy is out of the Pleasantly Perfect mare Shrilanka, a grass horse during her racing career. But he’s by Bernardini, a lowly 8 percent turf route sire, less than half his strike rate in dirt routes.
Fawkes has found recent Ellis success with first-time turfers. On July 4, Two Seven O won the Dade Park Dash in his grass debut, and July 19, a seventh-time starting maiden named Banksy’s got home by a head in his first turf try.
Mario Gutierrez rides Baddest Good Boy from the rail, and Fawkes expects the horse near the lead in what, on paper, is a paceless race.
A lack of pace hurts both Love’m Or Liam and the horse he nipped in their common last start at Churchill, Tough Little Nut.
Love’m Or Liam only recently became a full-time grass horse, missing by a narrow margin in a Keeneland first-level allowance in April before clearing that condition by three lengths at Churchill on May 9. Favored in his first second-level allowance try, Love’m Or Liam rallied up the fence but had too much ground to close on victorious front-runner, Johny’s Rendezvous, missing by a half-length.
While Love’m Or Liam saved ground June 24, Tough Little Nut made a mild mid-race bid that left him four wide with no cover around the far turn. Undaunted, Tough Little Nut continued pushing forward and basically finished on even terms with Love’m Or Liam.
Tough Little Nut is the better play between those two, but maybe Fawkes, the relative Ellis newcomer, wins his third race of the meet with Baddest Good Boy.
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