Maker entrants look live in Claiming Crown preview races

FRANKLIN, Ky. – Mike Maker has created quite a few profitable niches for himself since leaving the D. Wayne Lukas fold in 2003.

Maker has accumulated stable earnings of more than $84 million while training the winners of more than 2,150 races, including 69 graded stakes. In the meantime, the 49-year-old Michigan native has become the all-time leading trainer at Kentucky Downs and in the Claiming Crown.

On Sunday, those Maker specialties will dovetail during a potentially lucrative afternoon. Prior to sending out a combined five starters in the co-featured Dueling Grounds Oaks and Derby, Maker will be represented by at least one horse in each of the four Claiming Crown qualifying events, carded as races 3 through 6 at turf-only Kentucky Downs, including heavy favorites in two of them.

Each of the previews offer a purse of $100,000, along with guaranteed berths and traveling expenses toward designated Claiming Crown events to be run Dec. 1 at Gulfstream Park in Florida. All four Sunday races are restricted to horses that have raced for a claiming price of $25,000 or less since Jan. 1, 2017.

Here is a look at each of those Sunday races (and its corresponding Claiming Crown event):

Race 3 (Canterbury): Maker has a formidable stable coupling in Maniacal and Belgian, either of whom appears entirely capable of winning this 6 1/2-furlong race. Chicago shipper Bushrod looks like the only rival capable of foiling Maker.

Race 4 (Emerald): Maker will saddle Swagger Jagger as the second morning-line choice behind New York shipper Aquaphobia in a competitive field of 10 in this mile and 70-yard race.

Race 5 (Tiara): Peru, entered off a sharp allowance win in late June for Maker, appears to bring a major class edge into this mile and 70-yard race and could be odds-on against nine other fillies and mares.

Race 6 (Distaff Dash): This 6 1/2-furlong race for fillies and mares is the deepest of the previews, with the Maker-trained Dreamin being a fringe contender in a 13-horse field that should have Kirby’s Penny, Honey Bunny, and The Craic among its favorites.

The Claiming Crown, which has expanded to nine races in recent years, will celebrate its 20th running this year. The popular series originated at Canterbury Park in Minnesota in 1999 and moved around several times before being held annually at Gulfstream since 2013. Claiming Crown officials announced Thursday that the series will continue to be run at Gulfstream at least through 2021.

Van Dyke gets early birthday gift

Drayden Van Dyke will celebrate his 24th birthday Monday after what he hopes will be another big weekend. Van Dyke, who grew up mostly in Arkansas but also spent considerable time in Kentucky, was the leading rider at the recently ended Del Mar meet and was booked to ride the last four days of the Kentucky Downs meet.

Van Dyke’s first Kentucky Downs stakes win came aboard Big Bend last year in the Dueling Grounds Derby, and he notched his second when guiding Next Shares to a 1 3/4-length score Thursday in the Old Friends Stakes.

“There’s no place like this for this amount of money in maiden special weights and whatnot,” he told Kentucky Downs publicity afterward, referring to maiden races with purses that max out at $130,000.

Winning the Old Friends, he said, is “an early birthday present already.”