Snapper Sinclair seeks repeat in Tourist Mile

Snapper Sinclair is not really a turf horse – unless the turf course is Kentucky Downs.

In 2017, Snapper Sinclair won a rich 2-year-old Kentucky Downs turf stakes by almost two lengths. He didn’t return to the bucolic, European-style course until last summer, when he captured the Tourist Mile at odds of 10-1.

Despite the 2-for-2 record and trainer Steve Asmussen in his corner, Snapper Sinclair is listed as a 10-1 shot again Monday when he tries to win his second Tourist Mile.

The $750,000 Tourist Mile, run around one turn over the undulating Kentucky Downs course, is the last of 11 races Monday on a card brimming with full, competitive fields and including three other stakes races – the One Dreamer, a restricted race for older fillies and mares, and a pair of $300,000 one-mile races for 2-year-olds. First post is 12:10 p.m. Central, and the forecast is for hot, dry conditions.

Snapper Sinclair is one of a dozen original Tourist Mile entrants, but Spectacular Gem was to race Derby Day in the Old Forester Turf Classic at Churchill, removing what would’ve been a key pace player. Forward placements and inside trips were key during the short Kentucky Downs season last year, when scorching temperatures and ultra-dry air baked the grass course. Snapper Sinclair won the Tourist Mile from well off the pace after breaking from post 1 under Julien Leparoux. Leparoux has the mount again Monday, but Snapper Sinclair drew post 8. Campaigned by Bloom Racing, Snapper Sinclair began 2020 in solid form, coming close without winning a pair of Oaklawn stakes races, but he tailed off in April, May, and June, at which point connections put him on hold for a return to Kentucky Downs.

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Snapper Sinclair probably is facing slightly stronger competition than he beat in the 2019 Tourist, with Parlor likely to be favored for trainer Mike Maker and jockey Florent Geroux. Maker and an owners’ partnership claimed Parlor last fall for $80,000 and have gotten their money’s worth. Six-year-old Parlor in his last three starts, one each in May, June, and July, has run the three best races of his 29-start career. On July 10, in his most recent race, he came within a nose of posting a 24-1 upset in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile, losing by a nose to War of Will while finishing just ahead of Grade 1 winner Raging Bull. Parlor since has worked steadily and sports an encouraging 4-0-2-1 Kentucky Downs record. Maker also sends out Hembree, who was fourth in the 2019 Tourist Mile and won a seven-furlong allowance race at the 2018 Kentucky Downs meet.

Trainer Chad Brown has started only one horse at Kentucky Downs, that back in 2015, but has multiple runners on the Monday card, including Flavius in the Tourist Mile. Flavius, a 5-year-old with only six career starts, has run teasingly in his three North American races, twice finishing fourth last fall at Gulfstream and Aqueduct before running third racing off a layoff with blinkers added in the First Defence Stakes nearly three months ago, his most recent race. Despite his age, he remains a horse with some upside and should offer fair value, for a change, on Monday.

Ivar was a multiple Group 1 winner last year in Argentina, and after a modest North American debut this past May he won a June allowance race – his most recent start – with a 100 Beyer Speed Figure. He’ll want a forward placement, but the likely pacesetter is California shipper Neptune’s Storm, who is good enough to make a clear lead stick if he is not made to work. Also in from California is mercurial deep-closer Next Shares, who, if history is a guide, could finish anywhere from last to first.