Sapphire Beach back on Lasix for tough turf sprint
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If the Sunday feature at Churchill Downs feels like a stakes disguised as an allowance race, that’s because for all intents and purposes it is.
A $141,000 purse, that’s clearly stakes-level money, and all eight of the entrants last ran in stakes competition, seven of them in at least two straight stakes.
The feature is carded for 5 1/2 furlongs on turf and restricted to 3-year-old fillies who have not won a graded race on grass.
Sapphire Beach very nearly did just that, missing by a neck in the Grade 3 Limestone on April 10 at Keeneland – and that was no mundane Grade 3. Victorious Slay the Day returned to finish a fine second, beaten one length, in the Mamzelle at Churchill, a race won by the Limestone’s third-place finisher, Cy Fair, a truly top-class turf sprinter in her division.
Sapphire Beach’s connections passed the Mamzelle for the good of their horse. The official chart notes that Sapphire Beach bled in the Limestone. She couldn’t run on the anti-bleeder medication Lasix in that race and could not run on it in the Grade 3 Mamzelle, but all eight fillies Sunday get Lasix.
“We decided to wait and get her a spot here when she can run on Lasix and then try to get her back into stakes races,” said Rusty Arnold, who trains Sapphire Beach for Three Diamonds Farm.
Sapphire Beach, Lasix or not, never had bled in a race before the Limestone, Arnold said. Nor does he expect any problems in Sunday’s allowance contest.
“I feel very confident she’s going to be fine. We’ll take it race by race. I’ve had a lot of horses that have bled. We’ll space her races out a little more and hopefully get her back to a graded stake at some point, because we’ve thought a whole lot of her since Day One,” Arnold said.
Sapphire Beach, by No Nay Never, has tried two short turf sprints among her six races and ran lights-out both times. She has rateable speed, a good draw in post 6, and Jose Ortiz is back in the irons. It’s difficult to see her going off as high as her 5-2 morning-line odds.
The line has rail-drawn Beach Heist the 2-1 favorite, which seems ambitious. Not that Beach Heist has done much wrong. She aced her debut last fall at Keeneland in a 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint maiden, and ran back Nov. 7 at Aqueduct in the Stewart Manor over six furlongs on grass. Whether Beach Heist wasn’t quite able to stretch her ample early speed, or whether she merely failed to progress from her sharp debut, Beach Heist drifted out the final furlong and couldn’t finish the job, settling for a close third.
The two horses in front of her returned to win their next start, victorious Map of the Moon in the Gowell Stakes at Turfway Park and runner-up Believe in Magic in a Turfway allowance.
Flavien Prat almost certainly goes to the lead with Beach Heist from her rail draw – and Sapphire Beach probably runs her down.
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