Rocketry in peak form for Marathon

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Rocketry made racing history last time out, when he eclipsed a nearly century-old track record held by the legendary Man o’ War. He’ll get a chance to follow that up with a graded stakes win before a big crowd in the Grade 2, $200,000 Marathon Stakes, a 1 3/4-mile race that concludes the Friday Breeders’ Cup Day program at Churchill Downs.

After an optional-claiming victory going 1 1/4 miles in April at Belmont Park, Rocketry made three unsuccessful starts at between 1 3/8 and two miles on the turf before trainer Jimmy Jerkens moved him to dirt for the first time for the 1 5/8-mile Temperence Hill Stakes on Sept. 30 at Belmont. Rocketry inched away late for a 1 1/2-length victory. His final time of 2:40.18 for the 1 5/8 miles shaded the mark of 2:40.80 set by Man o’ War in the 1920 Lawrence Realization Stakes.

“I was glad to see he was a lot more on the bridle than he is on the turf, so I felt good going into the backside that he wasn’t pumping on him just to keep him close like you do on the turf,” Jerkens said. “He can fall way back on the turf, even when the pace was slow. The way he was galloping into the backstretch, I felt good.”

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Joel Rosario, aboard in the Temperence Hill, keeps the mount on Rocketry for the Marathon. The duo drew the outside post in the field of 10.

War Story also has shown an affinity for distance, winning last year’s Grade 2 Brooklyn Stakes at 1 1/2 miles. A stakes winner earlier this year at Tampa, he finished second, beaten a neck, in the Grade 3 Greenwood Cup at Parx Racing going 1 1/2 miles, and third in the Temperence Hill. War Story will have Irad Ortiz Jr. in the irons for trainer Jorge Navarro.

Multiple graded stakes winner Honorable Duty counts the Grade 3 Lukas Classic in September 2017 at Churchill among his victories. He finished second in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap here in June behind Breeders’ Cup Classic entrant Pavel and returned from more than three months off to run third in this year’s Lukas Classic behind Breeders’ Cup-bound Mind Your Biscuits and Toast of New York. Toast of New York, who finished second in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, is entered in the Marathon and is the second also-eligible to make the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Dabster ships in for Bob Baffert off back-to-back stakes victories at Del Mar and Los Alamitos.