Never Explain sets Pimlico track record in stakes debut
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BALTIMORE – Decades into a Hall of Fame training career, Shug McGaughey need never explain his methods. Fifteen races into his racing career, on Saturday at Pimlico, a 5-year-old he trains called Never Explain belatedly made his stakes debut in the Grade 3, $200,000 Dinner Party. The horse was ready for it.
Under a perfect ride from Flavien Prat, Never Explain surged 50 yards before the wire and came out on top of a five-horse blanket finish in the Dinner Party.
“To be honest, turning for home, it felt like anyone could win,” said Prat. “He really dug in. He was game today.”
Hurricane Dream, the 6-5 favorite, looked like a winner a furlong out but failed to quite muster the necessary finish and settled for second, a half-length behind the winner and a head in front of Emmanuel. Emmanual had a neck on Speaking Scout, who was a neck in front of pacesetting Atone. Easter was right behind the pack of five, a length back in sixth, while Rising Empire, a distant last of seven, was the only horse not in real contention.
Never Explain was game on Saturday, in great part because McGaughey and his crew taught this horse the game their way – slowly and patiently.
It took Never Explain three starts to win a maiden race, which he did out of the limelight at Horseshoe Indianapolis. It took him four more tries to win a first-level allowance race, and after finishing sixth Jan. 1 at Gulfstream Park, Never Explain, the rest of his 5-year-old season ahead of him, had won twice in 12 races.
McGaughey tried blinkers twice last year, then took them off, tinkering and probing. And that sixth-place finish on New Year’s Day quietly marked the beginning of Never Explain’s ascent. At Tampa Bay Downs, Never Explain won two allowance races in row, on Jan. 18 and March 1.
“Those two races that he won were really kind of confidence builders for him,” said McGaughey. “He’d been training good. Maybe he’s one stepping up a little bit.”
No maybe about it.
The blinkers experiment had to do with trying to teach Never Explain to settle; in blinkers and without them, Never Explain has tended to pull harder than ideal. But not Saturday.
Prat had been aboard the horse 366 days ago when Never Explain won a Pimlico turf allowance, and Never Explain melted into his hands in the Dinner Party. With Atone setting the pace – 23.85, 47.20, and 1:11.23 – and Emmanuel pressing, Prat snugged Never Explain behind the leaders and inside Rising Empire down the backstretch and through the turn. Hitting the homestretch, he swung out for run, but the leaders weren’t stopping, Hurricane Dream was coming on the outside, and Speaking Scout attempted to knife between horses. Not just at the top of the stretch was it anyone’s race, as Prat said – nothing had been decided at the eighth pole. Never Explain turned out to be the one going best.
“I have to say Flavien rode a great race. The horse relaxed for him today. He was there for him,” McGaughey said.
Never Explain paid $32.40 to win and was clocked in 1:46.14 over firm turf, breaking the course record of 1:46.34 set by Mr O’Brien winning this race in 2004. While Never Explain’s name goes down as the fastest nine-furlong grass horse in Pimlico history, the fact five horses came close to the mark suggests a fast-playing course had everything to do with the clocking.
Never Explain earned a 96 Beyer Speed Figure with the victory.
Bred in Kentucky by Hidden Brook Farm and Godolphin, Never Explain was sold at auction as a weanling for $155,000 and as a yearling for $475,000, purchased by his owner, Donald Adam’s Courtlandt Farms. Never Explain is by Street Sense out of Black Oak, by Forestry.
McGaughey first won this race in 1993 with the great miler, Lure. He won it in 2009 with Parading, in 2015 with Ironicus, and in 2018 with Fire Away. Never Explain was 15-1 Saturday. Never count Shug out.
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