Turnerloose looks to build on debut win in Aristocrat Juvenile Fillies
Sandwiched neatly around the featured Mint Million, a pair of $500,000 stakes for 2-year-olds are among the supporting events on a terrific Labor Day card at Kentucky Downs in south-central Kentucky.
The Aristocrat Juvenile Fillies and the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile are the co-features that help bring the 11-race Monday program to an end. The one-turn mile races offer purses of $500,000 each as bookends to the final pick three of the day.
Purses for both races include $250,000 from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund. Among a combined 21 entries in the two races, the only one ineligible for the bonus money is Rumble Strip Ron, an Ohio-bred colt in the Juvenile.
After Monday, a pair of 6 1/2-furlong stakes for 2-year-olds still remain – the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Turf Sprint on Thursday and the Untapable on Sunday, closing day of the six-day meet.
Aristocrat Juvenile Fillies
While enjoying a sensational summer at Saratoga, Brad Cox also dominated at Ellis Park when topping the trainer standings with 22 wins into the meet finale on Saturday. One of the Cox winners was Turnerloose, a Nyquist filly whose winning July 16 debut over the Ellis turf was sufficient to make her the morning-line favorite in this field of 10.
Owned by Ike and Dawn Thrash, Turnerloose will once again partner with Florent Geroux when breaking from post 2. She did everything right in winning the one-mile race, turning back a sustained bid from a group that includes one of her Monday rivals, Stepper, who wheeled back to win her next start on the Ellis turf for trainer Tommy Drury. Stepper was assigned post 7 with Corey Lanerie named to ride.
Foremost among the opposition for Turnerloose and Stepper is another filly shipping in from Ellis, albeit one who has yet to race on the grass. Verylittlecents, a gate-to-wire winner of the Ellis Debutante on Aug. 16 going seven furlongs on the main track, will be looking to run her career record to 3 for 4 when having Joe Talamo aboard from post 3.
“She sure does have a lot of talent,” trainer Randy Morse said.
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Clearly the transition to grass by Verylittlecents is a central issue in dissecting the Juvenile Fillies. There’s plenty of other speed signed on, so it’s doubtful she can make an easy lead this time. Longshots such as Cypress Queen, She Hit a Homer, and Ring Me Darling all have shown early quicks in limited tries, while a second Cox runner, Yin Yang (post 6, Joel Rosario), led throughout in her only start when going a two-turn mile on the Ellis turf.
“We’ll just have to play it by ear and see how it sets up for us,” Talamo said.
This is the 10th running of the Juvenile Fillies. Three of the last five runnings were won by New York-based Christophe Clement, who has no Kentucky Downs entries through the first four days of this meet. The Clement winners were Lull (2016), Miss Technicality (2018), and Plum Ali (2020).
Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile
A maiden victory going two turns over the Saratoga turf last month was enough to make Kiss the Sky (post 3, Jose Ortiz) a lukewarm morning-line favorite in a wide-open field of 11 colts and geldings. Typical of this kind of race at this time of year with still-developing babies, there’s not a lot of established form to rely on, particularly when it comes to stakes experience.
That said, it’ll be interesting to see how Kiss the Sky and the other five last-out maiden winners will match up against the likes of the mischievously named Nobals (post 5, Geroux), the Larry Rivelli-trained gelding who won the ungraded Arlington-Washington Futurity over synthetic in staying unbeaten in two starts. Aside from Nobals, the only others to test stakes waters prior to Monday are Red Run (post 10, Rosario), who was soundly defeated in both the Bashford Manor and Saratoga Special going short on dirt, and longshot Rumble Strip Ron (post 7, Javier Castellano).
Tiz the Bomb (post 9, Brian Hernandez Jr.) turned some heads in a 14-length romp at Ellis, but that was in an off-the-turf race in which he was an odds-on favorite for trainer Ken McPeek. This will be the first grass attempt by the $330,000 yearling purchase whose young sire, Hit It a Bomb, won the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland.
Other starters who figure to draw some play include Call Me Gusto (post 1, Colby Hernandez), who gave trainer Sarah Hamilton her first career victory last month; On Thin Ice (post 8, Tyler Gaffalione), an easy winner over the Gulfstream Park turf for Mark Casse; and a second Maker starter, Fan the Fire (post 6, Julien Leparoux), the only maiden in the competitive lineup.
The Juvenile dates to 1993, when Larry Melancon rode Smilin Singin Sam to victory for Dogwood Stable and trainer Niall O’Callaghan. Last year, with no fans on-site because of the coronavirus pandemic, Barrister Tom upset the Juvenile at a $90 mutuel for trainer Michael Ann Ewing.