Maker's turf team strong in two-mile H. Allen Jerkens
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Mike Maker will put his turf juggernaut on full display in Friday’s $100,000 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes, having entered four of the nine starters in the grueling two-mile test, which will be run as the finale on a 10-race Christmas Eve program at Gulfstream Park.
The potent Maker quartet of long-winded grass specialists is led by Ajourneytofreedom, who finished third in the two-mile Belmont Gold Cup on June 4, and also includes Malthael, Jarreau, and Bluegrass Parkway.
The somewhat inconsistent Fantasioso, second, a length better than Ajourneytofreedom when the pair met in the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup, and speedy Abaan, who figures to control the pace, also loom as key contenders.
Ajourneytofreedom was hung wide before rallying to finish 3 3/4 lengths behind the 6-5 Baron Samedi in the Belmont Gold Cup, which was decided over a yielding course. The winner flattered the race when he returned to finish third of 13 in the Group 1 Irish St. Leger later in September. Ajourneytofreedom, an allowance winner going a mile and one-half this past summer at Saratoga, was also second, beaten just a neck, in the Grade 3 John B. Connally at 1 1/2 miles to start the year at Sam Houston.
Malthael was an allowance winner going a mile and one-half during the fall at Keeneland while Bluegrass Parkway owns a victory over the local course at 11 furlongs, which came in his 2021 debut. Jarreau finished second trying a mile and three-eighths for the first time in his most recent race, when beaten two lengths by the pacesetting Abaan at Aqueduct.
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Fantasioso has had an up-and-down season for trainer Ignacio Correas IV, who is best known for winning the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Distaff with Blue Prize. Fantasioso’s second-place finish to Baron Samedi in the Belmont Gold Cup was far and away his best performance during a campaign that also produced a third-place finish in the 13-furlong John’s Call at Saratoga and a fourth in the Grade 2 Elkhorn.
Fantasioso joined Correas’s barn this season after launching his career in his native Argentina where he was a Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed in 2020.
“Distance is his strong suit, as he proved in the race at Belmont, although he also ran big races at Saratoga and Keeneland too,” said Correas. “I don’t know what happened to him when he went to Canada for the International. He didn’t run at all that day, which is still a mystery to me, and last time he stumbled at Keeneland, which took him out of the race completely.
“Obviously I’d like to see a fast pace, but he is the kind of horse who’ll always have a good kick the last quarter, even after having gone a mile and three-quarters. He’s training great and Julien [Leparoux] has worked and ridden him, so he knows this horse well.”
The improving Abaan should hold a pace advantage over his eight rivals with distance the key question as he’ll attempt to stretch his speed beyond a mile and one-half for the first time on Friday. Abaan will also get a bit of a class check, trying stakes company for the first time off a wire-to-wire entry-level allowance win going a mile and three furlongs last month at Aqueduct.
◗ Friday’s co-feature is also a good one. The mile and 70-yard allowance test over the Tapeta course for 2-year-olds has lured a field of eight led by Churchtown, who finished fourth in the Grade 3 Grey after setting the pace through midstretch over the synthetic strip at Woodbine.
Churchtown, who breaks from the rail, may have his next door neighbor in the starting gate as his chief rival, the multiple stakes-placed C My Meister, who is coming off a fourth-place finish despite an unlucky start in the grassy Pulpit Stakes three weeks earlier. A Florida bred, C My Meister performed admirably in his only try over the Tapeta, rallying to finish third despite getting hung wide in the restricted Juvenile Stakes on Oct. 23.