Motion duo headlines Tapit, kicks off wealthy Kentucky Downs meet

The satellite map of Franklin, Ky., shows a patchwork of rural landscape, fields, and farms in various hues of green.

How appropriate.

Dollars are pouring from the sky at Kentucky Downs, the fleeting race meeting in Franklin. The 2023 season, seven days of it, begins Thursday with a 10-race card worth $2.14 million.

Nearly half of most purses are paid only to Kentucky-bred horses, but there are plenty of those running around, and a vast number will trek to the irregularly shaped, undulating oval situated a stone’s throw from the Tennessee border. Including also-eligibles, 134 horses were entered in Thursday’s 10 races. Six contests drew overflow fields, and no race went with fewer than nine entrants, standard for a track that averaged about 10.4 starters in 2022.

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Maiden races are worth $150,000, $80,000 for non-Kentucky-breds, and Kentucky Downs has 11 stakes races worth at least $1 million this year.

Thursday’s first card is followed by racing Sept. 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, and 13. First post is 12:25 Central except on Sept. 9, when racing starts at 11:30.

That card is the meet’s meatiest, featuring six seven-figure stakes races headed by the 1 1/2-mile Kentucky Turf Cup, worth $1.7 million this year. The Turf Cup and the Turf Sprint on Sept. 9 are part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series. The meet’s richest race is the $2 million Mint Millions on Sept. 2.

Most of these massive purses are generated by four Mint Gaming Halls operated by Kentucky Racing Acquisitions LLC, a company, with prominent owner-breeder Ron Winchell as a principal, formed in 2018 to purchase all Kentucky Downs’s assets. The Mint Gaming Hall at Kentucky Downs has more than 1,000 gambling games.

To earn these riches, a horse must navigate a racecourse unlike any they’ll encounter without venturing overseas. One circuit around the course is about 1 5/16 miles, with the clubhouse turn a relatively narrow bend, an up-and-down backstretch giving way to a right-handed turn before a dip into a second left-handed bend and a long homestretch, much of it uphill.

Mike Maker has won or tied for the last three training titles, though with varying degrees of success; his record since 2019 is 27 for 208, a 12 percent strike that comes with a low $1.15 ROI. Maker has horses in six races Thursday, as does Steve Asmussen.

Tyler Gaffalione led jockeys with nine winners last year; Joel Rosario topped the 2021 standings with 17. Both jockeys ride the opening day card, as does John Velazquez, and expect to see the brothers Ortiz, Irad and Jose, make appearances.

The track employs three rail positions; the temporary rail is set at 40 feet the first two cards, 20 feet the second two, and comes down the last three days.

The 17-race, $15.7 million stakes schedule begins Thursday with the $500,000 Tapit, restricted to horses lacking a 2023 stakes win and carded over one mile and 70 yards. Because of extended run-ups, the distance between the starting gate and the start of timing, all Kentucky Downs distances, save those at 1 1/2 miles, are longer than published. The Tapit’s actual distance is at least 1 1/16 miles.

The race drew 16 entrants and can accommodate a dozen, two of whom come from Maryland for trainer Graham Motion.

Seven-year-old English Bee exits his best showing since December 2021, a third-place finish behind Casa Creed and Annapolis, legitimate Grade 1 horses, in the Kelso on July 15 at Saratoga.

“His last race was huge,” Motion said. “He’s become a barn favorite, just a serious, hard-knocking horse.”

English Bee has been knocking around so long that his lone Kentucky Downs start came in 2020, when he finished a solid fourth in the Tapit.

Motion’s second entrant, 4-year-old Speaking Scout, finished seventh last Kentucky Downs season in the Dueling Grounds Derby, though his performance wasn’t as bad as it looks on paper. At about 1 3/8 miles, the race was too far for Speaking Scout, who made an extremely wide move off the final turn and was head and head for the lead with a furlong to run. The race also was run over a wet course, and Speaking Scout, whose top performances came in Southern California, probably wants firmer going. He didn’t get it done finishing fourth last out in the Lure Stakes at Saratoga, turning in the field’s fastest finishing time after falling too far behind the pace. Speaking Scout’s third-place finish two races ago in the Monmouth Stakes also came with a very challenging trip.

“He does look super right now,” said Motion. “It’s all about trip with him.”

Jareth Loveberry, just back in action after an injury, rides Speaking Scout for the first time since the gelding romped in the Hawthorne Derby last October.

Portfolio Company, third in the Lure, and Strong Quality, dropping in class from the Grade 1 Arlington Million, figure to take betting action. Whisper Not is a longshot worth considering.

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