Road to the 2023 Kentucky Derby: John Battaglia Memorial analysis
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$147,500 John Battaglia Memorial, Turfway Park, March 4, 2023
(20 qualifying points for first, 8 for second, 6 for third, 4 for fourth, and 2 for fifth)
Winner: Congruent, by Tapit
Trainer: Antonio Sano
Jockey: Sonny Leon
Owner: Tami Bobo and Lugamo Racing Stable
Distance, time: 1 1/16 miles, 1:43.02 (Tapeta)
Win margin: 3 1/2 lengths
Beyer: 91
Trainer Ben Colebrook already had won a Road to the Kentucky Derby qualifying race, the Gotham at Aqueduct, earlier in the day with Raise Cain, and with better fortune he might have won this one, too. In New York, Raise Cain managed to traverse an inside passage in a big field and find the room he needed, but in the Battaglia, runner-up SCOOBIE QUANDO had no such luck.
Instead, it was a big gray Florida shipper going turf to synthetic, CONGRUENT, who won by open lengths. This race, like the Gotham, fell apart because of a fast, taxing pace, and Congruent, like Raising Cain in the Gotham, reaped the benefits.
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Breaking from the outside post in a 12-horse field, Congruent and Sonny Leon went over to about the three path to take the first turn at the back of the field. Leon, still second to last at the five-furlong marker, made a key move, dropping down toward the inside rather than giving up precious ground to go wide, and managed to get just two to three lanes off the fence for the far-turn run.
At the five-sixteenths, Leon began asking Congruent in earnest while steering outside, and at the quarter pole, which comes well before the top of the homestretch at Turfway, Congruent had worked his way up to seventh and was rolling.
Congruent came outside the leaders between the three-sixteenths and the eighth pole, though he never had to spin especially wide, briefly lost his focus, wandering to the right, while passing, then ran straight and true to the finish and galloped out far in front.
Congruent won the Laurel Futurity, rained from turf onto a sloppy track last October, and had been finishing evenly in Gulfstream Park turf stakes. He raised his top Beyer 9 points here and clearly relished the synthetic surface, but got an ideal setup on a surface far different from Churchill Downs dirt.
Scoobie Quando was making his stakes debut in his third career start following a debut sprint win and a runner-up finish in a one-mile allowance race, both at Turfway. Jockey Luis Machado plunked him mid-pack after a solid start and decided to save ground around the first turn, sticking to the inside for the backstretch run.
Coming to the far turn, Scoobie Quando traveling nicely into fifth, a hole two paths off the rail briefly opened. It closed before horse or rider made a move for it – and then the trouble began.
The European phrase “sit and suffer,” surely summed up Machado’s state of mind. Boxed in for a furlong and a half, by the time Scoobie Quando came to the homestretch, still buried inside, he had been shuffled back to ninth and Congruent was long gone.
Machado finally had space to move outside, and once clear past the three-sixteenths, Scoobie Quando finished like a rocket. Turfway’s short stretch didn’t afford sufficient time for him to catch the winner, but the final half-furlong went in 5.93 and Scoobie Quando was a couple lengths quicker.
BROMLEY, coming off a dismal showing making his route debut in the Jan. 18 Lecomte at Fair Grounds, took a seat near the back of the field, made a nice run around the turn to get into contention, came four paths wide between horses into the homestretch, and had the lead at the eighth pole.
The race shape favored the latest movers, and Bromley got into things a little too quickly, running out of juice the last 100 yards.
MOON LANDING and Bromley might have struck up a Battaglia friendship. They broke from adjacent posts and ran as a team, Moon Landing farther outside, for the entire journey, Moon Landing finishing a nose behind Bromley.
MIRANDA RIGHTS ran all right. Decently positioned early, he came out of the first turn much farther behind the leaders than he’d been going into it. He closed the gap again going into the far turn, Bromley and Moon Landing came outside him at the quarter pole, and as Miranda Rights tried to rally between horses cornering for home, he was shut off when GILMORE drifted out into his path.
Miranda Rights was taken to the rail for room, but Gilmore had wound up there too, blocking him again. Miranda Rights finally got away from Gilmore at the eighth pole and finished willingly to run Gilmore down for fifth while nowhere near the winner.
Gilmore, the favorite, was on a trainer change, Bob Baffert to Brendan Walsh, and had been second over Golden Gate’s Tapeta surface in the El Camino Real. Here, he got too much of the hot pace, racing from a close fourth and moving to second into the turn, and paid the price for it with a fading finish.
Gilmore wasn’t bad, and he’s the dividing line back to the true also-rans.
EYES ON THE KING has an excuse since he contested the demanding pace, but the two behind him, ACCIDENT and ARISTOCRACY, ran with the flow of the race from the back of the field and made no impression. GOOD HEART and FREEZING POINT, longshots both, tracked the leaders and were gassed at the three-sixteenths. AMERICAN SPEED had plenty of speed, leading before he stopped badly.
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