Saez gets off to good start in soggy conditions

LEXINGTON, Ky. – As rain came down amid the chill, virtually everyone at Keeneland was hoping that this isn’t the way the month will end.

The fall meet opened Friday with nasty conditions but an upbeat mood: the 32nd Breeders’ Cup will be run here Oct. 30-31, and hopefully, the famously fickle Kentucky weather will have turned nice by then. After an incredibly busy summer here, signs of the Breeders’ Cup are everywhere at Keeneland, from towering chalets and additional grandstand seating to BC ballcaps and outerwear.

Luis Saez was impervious to all that. The New York-based star jockey swept the meet’s first two races with Don’t Be Mad ($28.60) and Manchurian High ($7.80), coaxing both of his mounts past the front-runner in deep stretch of their respective races.

Saez was the common denominator for a rather disparate coupling of winning trainers: Merrill Scherer, a 76-year-old veteran from Louisiana, saddled Don’t Be Mad to win a $10,000 claiming sprint in the slop, and Lillian Kurtinecz, a 30-year-old from Maryland, was sending out her first Keeneland starter in Manchurian High, the winner of a high-end allowance over a soft turf course.

“That kid’s a race rider,” Scherer said of Saez. “Of course, that’s what you get when you come to a place like Keeneland. You can get somebody like him.”

Kurtinecz could hardly contain her joy, especially after a trainer’s objection against Manchurian High was quickly dismissed by the stewards. She owns the 7-year-old Manchurian High, having quit her racetrack job and borrowed money from her parents to buy him two years ago.

“The horse really needed this,” she said.

Later Friday, the Grade 3 Phoenix and Grade 1 Alcibiades were to be run as the first of nine graded stakes on the opening three-day FallStars Weekend. While the inclement weather was supposed to continue through Saturday, clearing conditions were in the forecast for Sunday.

Technically, the “regular” fall meet runs through Oct. 24 as a 17-day separate entity. Then comes “Prelude to the Cup,” a single program on Oct. 29, followed by the two Breeders’ Cup days.