Remembering Rita gets perfect setup to upset Cornhusker

Remembering Rita came into the 2018 Prairie Meadows meet a 4-year-old maiden, but Friday night he came away with a win in the track’s biggest race, the Grade 3, $300,000 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker.

Trainer Doug Anderson, training the second graded stakes winner of a career that began in 1991, fitted Remembering Rita with a set of blinkers for the first time May 25, and making his Prairie Meadows debut Remembering Rita finally won a race, romping by more than 11 lengths. When Remembering Rita came back June 13 to capture a first-level allowance by a similar margin, Anderson and owner Jeral Keith Adams started dreaming.

“We thought what the heck, we got to take a shot at $300,000 on our home track,” Anderson said.

Shot fired, target hit – with help from the Cornhusker race flow.

Krewe Chief stumbled so hard just after the start that he unseated jockey Chris Landeros, and none of the other seven horses left in the race seemed interested in doing much more than galloping. Dalmore went to the front and after a slow opening quarter in 24.24 seconds he crawled down the backstretch, going a half-mile in 48.98.

Perched just to his outside were Remembering Rita and jockey Alex Birzer. Birzer might have wondered if he’d be able to overtake Dalmore, but if he had a sense of the fractions he couldn’t have been afraid of anything coming from behind.

Six furlongs went in 1:12.65 as the horses finally started actually racing past the three-furlong marker. Turning for home, Kent Desormeaux on Dalmore floated Birzer and Remembering Rita way out into the center of the track. Dalmore, in from California, was the more experienced and accomplished horse, but this was Remembering Rita’s race. He pushed past Dalmore in the final half-furlong and was drawing away very late to score by 1 1/2 lengths, lighting the tote board at $41.60.

“The race just set up perfect for us,” Birzer said. “All I did was guide him around there.”

Remembering Rita got his last eighth-mile in 12.11 and was timed in 1:49.36 for 1 1/8 miles on a fast track. Dalmore held on for second by three-quarters of a length over favored McCraken, who had virtually no chance to catch the winner after racing about six lengths off the pace down the backstretch. Thirstforlife was right behind McCraken in fourth, followed by Matrooh, Hence, and Irish Freedom.

Remembering Rita is a 4-year-old colt by Spring at Last out of Deep South by Unbridled Song, and his record now stands at 11-3-1-4. Anderson claimed the horse Nov. 5, 2016, at Churchill Downs, paying $50,000 for a third-time-starting maiden who promptly required a layoff and didn’t start again for a year. It took a good long while, but Remembering Rita eventually gave his trainer a night he won’t forget.