Moving Style brings two streaks into Michigan Breeders Governor's Cup

Consistency in Michigan’s Thoroughbred platoon has been in short supply over the past decade, but Moving Style’s performance in the $20,000 Michigan Breeders Governor’s Cup at Hazel Park has never faltered.

Hazel Park has hosted three editions of the six-furlong race for Michigan-bred older males since taking over the state’s Thoroughbred meet in 2014, and Moving Style has won all of them. He will be part of a 10-horse field Saturday in his attempt to extend his streak to four renewals.

The Meadow Prayer gelding also will put his three-race undefeated streak at Hazel Park on the line, having only raced at the track during his Michigan Breeders Governor’s Cup victories. He took an extended break after last year’s win and resurfaced at Mahoning Valley Race Course, where he registered a pair of third-place efforts in five starts against allowance and optional-claiming company.

Moving Style comes into Saturday’s race off another layoff after finishing last in a Mahoning Valley allowance race March 29. He has been working toward his return at Thistledown, most recently turning in a four-furlong breeze in 49.20 seconds.

Apprentice Melissa Zajac, Hazel Park’s leading rider by wins, picks up the mount aboard Moving Style for the first time. Shane Spiess trains the gelding for his father, Merrill Spiess.

Boo Dutton, Michigan’s older male of the year in 2016, finished second to Moving Style in last year’s Michigan Breeders Governor’s Cup and went on to win his division of the Michigan Sire Stakes later that meet.

A son of Equality, the gelding came off his winter break to finish a steady second in a Hazel Park allowance June 10. While Boo Dutton proved in last year’s Sire Stakes that he can take an early lead and carry it to the wire, his best work has come at distances of a mile or longer. Saturday’s one-turn race may not be an airtight indicator of the gelding’s prospects later in the season when the races become longer.

Jason Uelmen will give Gilberto Santiago a leg up aboard Boo Dutton for owner Kala Crampton.

Meadow Wise, a veteran of the Michigan-bred scene harkening back to the days of the long-shuttered Pinnacle Race Course, will launch his 11-year-old campaign Saturday.

The Meadow Prayer gelding finished second to Boo Dutton in their division of last year’s Sire Stakes, then he finished his year in November at Hawthorne Race Course with a well-piloted win in a $5,000 claiming race over 6 1/2 furlongs.

Owned by Marion Gorham and trained by Robert Gorham, Meadow Wise last showed up on the work tab at Indiana Grand, where ha breezed a half-mile in 48.20 on July 4. Jeffrey Skerrett will have the mount on Meadow Wise for the first time since 2014.