Maker and Co. have work cut out for them in Saturday stakes

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hopefully, Christmas Day will be a quiet one for trainer Mike Maker, who’ll need his rest before coming over here the following afternoon to saddle 10 horses in the three stakes races that highlight Saturday’s card, including four each in the Tropical Park Derby and Allen Jerkens.

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Maker, second in the trainer standings as of Wednesday with nine wins, three behind Todd Pletcher, entered Fancy Liquor, Don Juan Kitten, Me and Mr. C, and Angelus Warrior in the 1 1/16-mile Tropical Park Derby. His four in the two-mile Allen Jerkens are Hieroglyphics, Conviction Trade, Treasure Trove, and Dante’s Fire, with the graded stakes winner Stunning Sky and Ask Bailey set for the 1 1/16-mile Tropical Park Oaks. The three stakes are worth $75,000 apiece and are scheduled for turf.

“Right now, I plan to run them all,” Maker said. “I’ve got two assistants, Nolan Ramsey and Lazaro Barrera, to help me saddle. In the races we have four entered, I’ll start at one end, they’ll start at the other, and we’ll meet in the middle.”

Fancy Liquor is the most highly regarded of Maker’s quartet in the Tropical Derby, having come from nearly a dozen lengths behind for a half-length tally over Taishan in the Grade 2 American Turf on Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs. Fancy Liquor had set or pressed the pace in all five of his previous starts and again when finishing a game second despite, surprisingly, getting into a pace duel with his graded stakes-placed stablemate Don Juan Kitten in the Bryan Station Stakes last month at Keeneland.

Maker acknowledged that what he was thinking when watching Fancy Liquor and Don Juan Kitten going head to head down the backstretch in the Bryan Station “wasn’t fit for print,” and said he’ll obviously have a different strategy in mind when the pair meet again in the Tropical Derby.

“Fancy Liquor showed he has matured and can do pretty much what you want with him the way he won the American Turf, so we’ll look to ease him back off the pace again this time,” Maker said.

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Like everyone else, Maker will be heading into uncharted waters when it comes to stretching his four horses out to two miles for the first time in the Allen Jerkens.

“You never know what to expect going two miles, although I don’t think Treasure Trove or Conviction Trade have distance limitations,” Maker said. “It might be a little stretch for Dante’s Fire, being a 3-year-old against older horses, but I always thought he wanted more distance and I felt he ran very creditably when we sent him a mile and three-eighths for the first time in his last start.”