Timeless Fashion looks strong in Turfway's Dust Commander Stakes

If it’s a two-turn stakes race for older horses at Turfway Park, yep, Timeless Fashion must be in it.

The $50,000 Dust Commander Stakes on Saturday night at the Florence, Ky., track will mark the seventh time that Timeless Fashion has gone postward in just such a race at Turfway. More notable, however, is that the 7-year-old gelding has been very productive, having posted four wins and a second from those six prior stakes tries. One of those triumphs came in the 2009 Dust Commander.

“He sure seems to like that racetrack there at Turfway, which sure doesn’t hurt you any,” said Tom Drury, who trains Timeless Fashion for Judy Miller and the R-Cher Family Farms LLC of Bob Liedel.

Timeless Fashion is one of eight entered in the Dust Commander, which goes at a mile over Polytrack. First post is 5:30 p.m. Eastern, with the featured 11th of 12 races going at 10:20.

Timeless Fashion has raced just 21 times in something of a stop-and-start career and has been extremely consistent, winning 10 races, including six stakes, while bankrolling nearly $385,000.

“He always shows up and tries hard,” said Drury, who is based at the Skylight training center northeast of Louisville. “He doesn’t have to be on the lead, and he doesn’t have to be taken back. We’re just going to let this race unfold like we usually do.”

In his last start, Timeless Fashion rallied to capture the Prairie Bayou by a nose under Jimmy Lopez, who will ride the horse Saturday night for the 13th straight time. They will break from post 1.

Timeless Fashion was the horse who won the Tejano Run in March when Turfway was memorializing the late jockey Justin Vitek, who actually rode the horse in his first two career starts. Vitek died in January 2010 at age 36.

Mike Maker, the leading trainer at the winter-spring meet in virtually every category, had seven of the 23 nominees to the race, including the only one he entered, Baryshnikov (post 2), perhaps the top challenger to Timeless Fashion.

Turfway will continue to run at night on Saturdays through the end of the meet, April 3, with the exception of Vinery Racing Spiral Day, March 26.