Stormy Blue scores youthful win in shortened, rescheduled Fall Classic
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Most horses get better with age, but it often doesn't happen when they hit 6. Stormy Blue is one of the exceptions.
After the first running of the 1 3/8-mile Fall Classic was declared a no contest due to a fallen jockey, the $50,000 race was reduced to 1 1/8 miles and rescheduled two weeks later for closing day at Hastings. Stormy Blue was the only fresh shooter in the five-horse field and, man, did he capitalize.
Stormy Blue was 3-1 on the morning line and got no respect, going off at 8-1. The late-blooming 6-year-old gelding acted like he was ticked off at the parimutuel pool, gaining the lead just before a leisurely quarter-mile went in 25.18 seconds.
It was sort of walk from there. The half went in a pedestrian 50.58 seconds. On a sloppy track, there was little chance the second- and third-place finishers, Diocles and Apprehend, would catch Stormy Blue, and they didn't.
A first-year jockey, Richard Balgobin, was aboard Stormy Blue for the first time, scoring a one-length win.
"First time the kid had been on," said winning trainer Barb Heads of Balgobin, who had 26 wins in 165 starts heading into the final day of the meet. "He's a simple ride – just point and shoot. He doesn't like to be messed with."
Nobody messed with Stormy Blue, who paid $18.10 to win and finished in 1:51.13, other than the muddy track. But he's a Pacific Northwest horse, and the moist footing was hardly enough to screw up his day.
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