Runup punches ticket to Alcibiades with Sorority win

When Runup travels 12 miles west by van from the Thoroughbred Training Center on the northeast side of Lexington, Ky., to Keeneland for the Alcibiades Stakes, it will seem like no travel at all to the 2-year-old filly.

Runup shipped from the Thoroughbred Training Center to Colonial Downs in Virginia, where she finished a distant third debuting in a turf sprint. She shipped again from the Thoroughbred Training Center to win a maiden race at Pimlico in Maryland, and last week the filly traveled from Lexington to New Jersey, where she captured the $200,000 Sorority Stakes at Monmouth Park.

Runup, who was supplemented into the race, led the two-turn, one-mile Sorority from start to finish, winning by three lengths and clocking 1:39.32, good for a career-best 72 Beyer Speed Figure. Runup’s win earned her a start in the Grade 1 Alcibiades on Oct. 8.

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“That will be a big challenge for her, but she deserves it,” said Laura Wohlers, who trains Runup for owner-breeder Jim McIngvale.

Runup is by McIngvale’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Runhappy and out of the Street Cry mare Up the Street. Runup’s second dam, Imperial Gesture, was a multiple Grade 1 winner and a sister to Kentucky Oaks winner Sardula.

“She came out of the race really good, didn’t lose as much weight as when she shipped up to Pimlico to win there,” Wohlers said. “She just has a lot of class. Nothing has seemed to rattle her. The only thing she didn’t seem to like was the turf at Colonial.”

Wohlers and McIngvale have a second 2-year-old pointed to a Kentucky stakes race in Joyrunner, a Gun Runner filly who has started her career with two wins at Indiana Grand. The most recent came Aug. 23, when Joyrunner won a sprint allowance by more than eight lengths and posted a 78 Beyer. She’s aimed toward the 1 1/16-mile Pocahontas on Sept. 18 at Churchill Downs.

“The two of them are so different,” said Wohlers. “Joyrunner in the stall is just real cautious about everything, stands there doing nervous stuff all day. But on the track, Runup is in the bit wanting to go, where Joyrunner is jut so relaxed and does whatever you want her to do. I’m not crazy about training fillies; they can be so temperamental.”

These two, so far, look worth the work.