One Go All Go repels challengers in Elkhorn

One Go All Go repelled all challengers to take the Grade 2, $250,000 Elkhorn Stakes before an announced crowd of 37,378 on an ideal-weather Saturday at Keeneland, but the sun-splashed afternoon was marred by the fatal breakdown of Grade 1 winner Bullards Alley early in the race.

Bullards Alley was pulled up in distress by Corey Lanerie exiting the first turn of the 1 1/2-mile race. Keeneland officials later confirmed that the gelding had been euthanized due to a lateral condyle fracture of the left hind leg.

Bullards Alley, a 6-year-old son of Flower Alley, was trained by Tim Glyshaw for Wayne Spalding and Faron McCubbins. His biggest victory came in last fall's Grade 1 Canadian International at Woodbine, in which he romped by 10 3/4 lengths, triggering a $87.90 payout. He also won the Grade 3 Louisville Handicap in 2016 and the Woodchopper Stakes in 2015, and placed in six other stakes. Overall, he put together a record of 40-6-5-7, and earned just shy of a million dollars, at $928,622.

“Bullard meant the world to us,” Glyshaw said in a statement he posted to his official social media channel later in the evening. “He was a cool horse that always gave his all. He was our first horse to win graded races for us and a Grade 1. No words can describe how I and my barn feel right now.”

Meanwhile, One Go All Go ($21.20) led throughout the Elkhorn under Chris Landeros. The two led by an unchallenged length for most of the race, getting away with comfortable splits of 26.32 seconds, 51.60, and 1:17.17. One Go All Go came under pressure approaching the stretch, but bravely repelled several bids through a long drive, hitting the wire three-quarters of a length ahead of Oscar Nominated. The latter nosed out defending winner Itsinthepost, who had won three straight coming in.

The final time for the 12 furlongs was 2:30.76.

One Go All Go was already a graded stakes winner, with a win in the Grade 2 Commonwealth Derby in 2015 at Laurel. But he failed to recapture that glory over the next two years, and was entered in the 2017 Keeneland November breeding stock sale as a racing or stallion prospect. Trainer Charles ‘Scooter’ Dickey was familiar with One Go All Go, as he had finished third, beaten less than a length, by the Dickey-trained Flatlined in the Cliff Guilliams Handicap last August at Ellis Park. Dickey purchased the horse for $62,000 on behalf of owner Rodney Paden.

“I said 'We'd better go see if we can buy him,' and we stole him,” Dickey said. “It looked like to me that Chris was sitting on him – he knows the horse well, and every time they came to him, he let him out a little bit, and they never could get to him.”

One race prior, Grade 3 winner One Liner signaled that he is rounding back to form, posting a determined win in an $80,000 allowance optional-claiming event that featured several other stakes horses.

Jockey Jose Ortiz, who was aboard the Todd Pletcher trainee, scored his 1,500th career victory in the process.

One Liner won his first three career starts, including the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes in March 2017, before going to the sidelines. He returned from a layoff of nearly a year to finish third behind Conquest Windycity and Mind Your Biscuits in a Gulfstream allowance-optional event in his season debut.