Speedy Brickyard Ride roars back from layoff with California Cup Sprint win
Brickyard Ride turned Santa Anita into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, speeding to the front soon after the start and never looking back in a dominating performance in the $151,500 California Cup Sprint, his second straight victory in this six-furlong race for older California-breds.
Brickyard Ride has terrific speed, and jockey Juan Hernandez put it to good use. Brickyard Ride flew through the opening quarter in 21.71 seconds and the half in 44.15 seconds, after which early pacepresser Letsgetlucky began to weaken. Brickyard Ride kicked away in upper stretch, cruised past the five-furlong mark in 56.58 seconds, and completed six furlongs on a fast main track in 1:09.54.
He won by 1 3/4 lengths, but the margin was deceiving, as the result was never in doubt. He paid $5.40 to win as favorite.
Positivity ran on along the rail to finish second while never threatening the winner. He finished 1 3/4 lengths in front of Letsgetlucky, who held on for third by three-quarters of a length over fourth-place Principe Carlo. Rifey was fifth and was followed, in order, by Colt Fiction, Peaceful Transfer, and Loud Mouth.
Brickyard Ride, now 5, scored his first significant victory in last year’s Cal Cup Sprint, which he won in similar fashion in 1:09.42. He subsequently won the Grade 2 San Carlos, and in June won the Thor’s Echo – another stakes for California-breds, also at Santa Anita – but after two poor tries in graded company at Del Mar last summer, trainer Craig Lewis sent him to the sidelines and hit the reset button for 2022.
Fresh from a layoff of more than four months, and back at a track where he had won six times in nine prior starts, Brickyard Ride regained his title as the best Cal-bred sprinter, and likely put himself in position to again tackle open company.
“I thought he ran great off the layoff,” Craig Lewis, who trains Brickyard Ride for his owner and breeder, Sonny Pais, said in a post-race interview on the track’s simulcast feed. “Hope we’re on to bigger and better things.”
Brickyard Ride is by the terrific stallion Clubhouse Ride – whom Lewis trained – and is out of the Southern Image mare Brickyard Helen. He has now won nine times in 19 starts, and the $90,000 first prize on Saturday increased his career earnings to $560,977