Regally Ready still running well at age 9
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Untapable is not the only Breeders’ Cup winner residing in trainer Steve Asmussen’s stable at Oaklawn Park.
Regally Ready has been there, done that, too, and is still going strong at the age of 9. He will be looking for his second win of the year in the sixth race here Saturday – as well as career victory No. 20.
“Is he amazing or what?” Asmussen said on a recent morning at Oaklawn.
Regally Ready is part of a field of eight for an optional $50,000 claiming race at a mile on the undercard of the $100,000 Hot Springs Stakes. His rivals include The Pickett Factor, the winner of the $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic in December at Fair Grounds.
Regally Ready has made 45 starts at 16 different tracks located in three countries and two continents. He has banked $1,783,281, topped by his 2011 win in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Every step of the way, he has been owned by Vinery Stables and trained by Asmussen.
“He is everything you would ever hope for in a racehorse,” Asmussen said. “Versatile, so sound and easy to be around – and easy on himself. And he’s reinvented himself a couple of times.”
Regally Ready, a gelding by More Than Ready bred by Grapestock, put himself on the turf-sprint path back in November 2010 with a 7 3/4-length score in his grass debut.
“I thought that he ran great in a two-other-than at the fall meet at Churchill,” Asmussen said of the five-eighths sprint. “It was just a tremendous race. It was questionable company that day, but he ran great, went to California, and from there had some success off the hill at 6 1/2 [furlongs at Santa Anita].”
Regally Ready captured the first two of his nine career stakes wins at Santa Anita in the spring of 2011, including the Grade 3 San Simeon Handicap. By that fall, he had become a Grade 1 winner in the Nearctic Stakes at Woodbine. It was his springboard to the Breeders’ Cup.
“The Breeders’ Cup was at Churchill, where he had won the two-other-than, so he obviously liked sprinting there,” said Asmussen.
In time, Regally Ready stretched out in distance on turf, and of late, he has been routing on dirt. He enters Saturday’s race off a 3 1/2-length win in an optional $75,000 claimer at 1 1/16 miles Feb. 4 at Oaklawn. He rallied from five lengths off the pace to defeat a field that included multiple stakes winner Smack Smack and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 97.
“He’s a talented horse,” Asmussen said. “He’s older now and just wants things the way he wants them, and when he gets his way, he’s still tremendously talented.”
Corey Nakatani was aboard for the win – as well as for the horse’s victories in the Breeders’ Cup and Nearctic. He will be in the saddle again Saturday, when Regally Ready makes his third start at Oaklawn. His first came back in April 2010, when he launched his career with a runner-up finish in a maiden special weight race.
As it turns out, that was the start of an unforgettable run at the races.