One Timer should show the way in Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint
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A long plan will come to fruition as One Timer goes in the Grade 2, $1 million Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint on Saturday. The race is a Win and You’re In qualifier for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Nov. 4 at Santa Anita.
One Timer is a five-time stakes winner for trainer Larry Rivelli and owners Richard Ravin and Patricia’s Hope LLC. The gelding showed an affinity for the Kentucky Downs course with a front-running 4 1/2-length victory in the Grade 2 Franklin-Simpson Stakes for 3-year-olds last September.
The Franklin-Simpson was at 6 1/2 furlongs. The Turf Sprint is six furlongs and starts on the sweeping far turn of the European-style course.
“We’ve been pointing him for this race the whole time, since last year,” Rivelli said. “That’s why I laid him off as long as I did. He seems to just love it, the open style of the track and everything.”
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One Timer, whose season began in June, is coming back to Kentucky Downs in stellar form, having earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 104 winning the Kentucky Downs Preview Turf Sprint Stakes last month at Ellis Park. Rather than taking a customary position on the lead, he instead sat just off the sharp fractions set by millionaire Just Might.
“I was expecting him to run good – I don’t know if I was expecting him to run that good,” Rivelli said. “He actually showed a little bit of a different dimension. [Jockey E. T. Baird] said the horse on the rail was just sending like crazy. He’s ridden him so many times, he knows his cruising speed, so he didn’t send him after the horse. He said, ‘I rode him like I was the horse in front,’ and then turning for home, he just kicked on by.”
One Timer, who has drawn the rail under Baird, would be the controlling speed in the Turf Sprint if his stablemate Nobals, a six-time stakes winner for Rivelli, scratches. Nobals was cross-entered in the $150,000 Da Hoss Stakes on Saturday at Colonial Downs and is now expected to start there.
Dream Shake and Bad Beat Brian could attend the pace. Dream Shake is coming off a pace-pressing win in the Grade 2 Connaught Cup at seven furlongs at Woodbine. Bad Beat Brian’s most notable effort this year came when he hounded 2022 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel throughout the Grade 2 Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland before finishing a close second to the mare.
A stout pace would benefit Cogburn, who has reinvented himself as a late-running turf sprinter this season, with three victories in as many starts on the surface, after spending the early part of his career on the dirt. After winning a pair of minor stakes at Lone Star for trainer Steve Asmussen, he passed a major class test in the Grade 3 Troy Stakes at Saratoga in August. Fourth early on the soft turf, he came with a determined run to nail pacesetter Nobals by three-quarters of a length, with Caravel finishing fourth on a course not to her liking.
Dr Zempf, a Group 3 winner in Ireland last year, most recently finished a creditable fourth in the Grade 1 Jaipur at Belmont Park, beaten 2 1/4 lengths by Caravel, Big Invasion, and subsequent Grade 1 winner Casa Creed.
Gear Jockey is looking for his first win since taking this race in 2021. The main body of the field is completed by stakes winner Anaconda; Eamonn and Front Run the Fed, who are coming off stakes wins at Monmouth Park and Colonial Downs, respectively; Noble Reflection, a Santa Anita allowance winner two starts back; and Olympic Runner, a graded stakes winner in 2021. Counterstrike, coming off an allowance win, is an also-eligible and would draw in with the scratch of Nobals.
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