One-mile race gets test drive at Keeneland

LEXINGTON, Ky. – History of a sort will be made Friday with the running of the seventh race, a $64,000 optional claimer for 3-year-olds and up: It’s the first one-mile race on the Keeneland main track.

The race is essentially a road test prior to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Oct. 30. With the 1 1/16-mile circumference of its main track, Keeneland never has contested races at a mile because of the short run into the first turn.

The reality is that these mile races actually will be “about” a mile since the starting gate will be positioned 70 yards before the regular finish pole; the clocking of the race won’t start until the lead horse triggers the electronic beam on the pole. The secondary finish wire (at the sixteenth pole) will be in use, as is done for all 1 1/16-mile dirt races here.

According to Keeneland racing secretary Ben Huffman: “The run to the first turn will be 463 feet, which actually is longer than what it is at Santa Anita,” where the BC Dirt Mile had been run the last three years. “We’ve actually got another three or four of these races in our condition book before the Breeders’ Cup to give the jockeys and our track crew a feel for them.”

◗ Rosie Napravnik, the leading jockey at the last two fall meets at Keeneland, has stopped exercising horses for her husband, Joe Sharp, but likely will resume doing so when the stable moves to Fair Grounds for the winter. The couple had their first child, son Carson, on June 1.

Napravnik galloped horses at Saratoga this summer but now is “busy eventing, besides taking care of the baby,” said Sharp. Napravnik, the second-leading female jockey in career mount earnings ($71.4 million), abruptly retired last November when announcing that she was pregnant. She has not ruled out an eventual comeback.

◗ Jockey Miguel Mena will return to action Friday for the first time since the Peru native broke his right collarbone in a post-parade accident Aug. 23 at Ellis Park. Mena is named to ride Kentucky Dancer in the first race for Dale Romans.

Another locally based veteran who recently was sidelined for six weeks with a tailbone injury, Jesus Castanon, was victorious with his sixth mount since returning when Boss Hawg won the first race Sunday.

◗ Tony Reinstedler, a familiar face on this circuit, is working this fall as an assistant to trainer Chris Block before he returns to Tampa for the winter. Reinstedler trained for more than 20 years, winning one meet title at Churchill Downs and developing Saint Liam before the horse earned the 2005 Horse of the Year title for Rick Dutrow.

◗ Friday marks the once-a-meet College Scholarship Day at Keeneland, with 10 scholarships worth $1,000 apiece being raffled off throughout the day. Students must be present to win.