Mr. Buff easy winner of Alex M. Robb Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Mr. Buff reasserted his dominance in the New York-bred older male ranks with an easy-as-he-pleased 7 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Alex M. Robb Stakes at Aqueduct.

As he had in three previous New York-bred stakes this year, Dynamax Prime finished second to Mr. Buff. It was two lengths back to 56-1 shot Fleet Irish in third. Twisted Tom, Big Gemmy, and Gio d’Oro completed the order of finish.

It was the second straight year that Mr. Buff won the Alex Robb. Last year, he won it by a nose for his first career stakes victory. He now has six stakes wins, 12 wins from 34 starts and earnings of $933,286. He is owned by Chester and Mary Broman, who are also his breeders, and is trained by John Kimmel.

Kimmel’s only concern heading into Saturday’s Robb was whether all the racing Mr. Buff has had over the last two years - Saturday was his 23rd start since the start of 2018 - would catch up to him. It didn’t.

“He’s an iron horse,” Kimmel said by phone from Florida. “He’s just a nice horse to train, he’s easy on himself.”

Mr. Buff has had most of his success on the front end. When necessary, though, he’s shown the ability to rate off a horse or two. It proved necessary Saturday as Gio d’Oro, breaking from the rail under Jose Lezcano, was intent on the lead.

Junior Alvarado let Mr. Buff track Gio d’Oro from second through a half-mile in 50.79 seconds before Mr. Buff dragged him to the lead leaving the half-mile pole. Mr. Buff opened up a clear advantage around the far turn and then finished off the race with some mild encouragement from Alvarado.

“I just rode my horse like he was the best horse, I wasn’t taking anything away from him, I wasn’t sending him either,” Alvarado said. “I knew how much horse I was going to have at the end. I let him move along pretty good. At the half-mile pole he took me and pretty much told me it’s time to start picking it up.”

Mr. Buff won five races from nine starts in 2019. Three of his losses came in open company stakes, including a seventh-place finish in the Grade 1 Woodward and a 10th-place finish in the Grade 1 Clark last time out.

Kimmel said the decision to sit second on Saturday was by design, as opposed to the Empire Classic which Mr. Buff won from a stalking position after stumbling at the start.

“It was a good time to try his stalking running style instead of having to be committed to the lead all the time,” Kimmel said. “I think that’s done him in against Grade 1 horses. Against this lesser group it was a good opportunity to let him stalk a horse and see how he would respond.”

Mr. Buff covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:52.84 over a dry, but slow main track. He returned $3.20 as the 1-2 favorite.

Kimmel said he’s not sure where Mr. Buff will run next though he ruled out the $3 million Pegasus Invitational at Gulfstream on Jan. 25. The Jazil - a race Mr. Buff won last year - that same day at Aqueduct is possible.