Turfway Park notes: Dylan Davis adds to credentials in apprentice championship race

Dylan Davis was conspicuous by his presence earlier this week at Turfway Park when the 19-year-old apprentice rode three winners on the last two days of 2013.

Davis had a combined five mounts Monday and Tuesday at the northern Kentucky track. The mounts were lined up by Jimmy McNerney, who has worked as Davis’s agent for much of the year.

“We were just trying to pad our stats as much as we could before the year ended,” McNerney said. “Every little bit helps, I guess.”

Indeed, as the year wound down, the competition for the Eclipse Award for top apprentice of 2013 appeared particularly confounding. With 124 wins and nearly $2.8 million in purse earnings while riding in Kentucky and Indiana for most of the year, Davis was one of the logical contenders for the award, along with perhaps another four or five other young riders.

McNerney said the idea for Davis to ride at Turfway was that of owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey and trainer Wesley Ward; two of the winners, Go Kitten Go and High Wire Kitten, represented them as odds-on favorites, and both horses were sired by Kitten’s Joy. For his part, Ken Ramsey was trying to further the statistics of his homebred Kitten’s Joy, who ended the year as the leading general sire with 134 wins and progeny earnings of more than $11.3 million.

Davis is the youngest of six children of Robbie Davis, who won 3,385 races in a standout riding career and is now a trainer in New York, and the brother of Jacqueline Davis, who has ridden since 2008 and is currently active at Parx Racing in suburban Philadelphia.

Dylan Davis was back riding Wednesday at Gulfstream Park, where his agent is Cliff Collier.

Holiday meet leaders

Seamlessly, as usual, the holiday meet at Turfway ended Tuesday and the winter-spring meet started the very next day. Handle figures for the 18-day holiday meet are not being released by Turfway, according to a track spokesperson.

The leading jockey at the holiday meet, which began Dec. 1, was Albin Jimenez with 19 wins, marking the first-ever riding title for the 22-year-old Panama native.

Mike Maker finished with seven wins, marking the 13th time he has been leading trainer at Turfway. Only Bernie Flint (20) has more Turfway titles.

The Ramseys led all owners with six wins, marking the ninth time in 2013 they were the leading owners at a North American meet. The others were at Gulfstream Park, Saratoga, Keeneland (two meets), Churchill Downs (three meets), and Kentucky Downs.

Mac the Man nears return

Mac the Man, winner of two Turfway stakes last winter as a 3-year-old, has breezed “five or six times” recently and is nearing a return to action after recovering first from a foot bruise and then from surgery for a testicular problem, according to trainer Jeff Greenhill.

Unraced since May, Mac the Man probably will run next in the $60,000 Forego Stakes on Jan. 18.

“It’s probably not ideal to bring him back in a stakes, but an allowance prep for the Forego didn’t fill and I don’t really have many other options,” Greenhill said.

Current meet schedule

With the move to the winter-spring meet, Turfway has shortened up to a three-day schedule (Friday-Sunday). Stakes will be run every other Saturday, through the John Battaglia Memorial on March 1. The track’s signature event, the $550,000 Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes, is set for March 22.

◗ Nate Chaves, a former leading apprentice in Southern California, has picked up Steve Peery as his agent.