Twinkle Town takes command early, cruises to Saratoga Special victory
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The way Saturday’s Grade 2 Saratoga Special looked on paper, trainer Kenny McPeek thought it would be a good opportunity to see how Twinkle Town, a front-running debut winner in June, would fare sitting off other horses.
But when the other two speed horses in the race, Booked and Flight Command, had trouble at the start and Twinkle Town broke alertly, jockey Jose Ortiz wasn’t going to take away his advantage. Thus, Twinkle Town assumed command soon after the start, shrugged off some pressure from a rushed-up Booked and bounded clear in the stretch to an emphatic six-length victory in the $250,000 Saratoga Special for 2-year-old colts at Saratoga.
Booked, the Grade 3 Sanford winner here on July 4, finished second by seven lengths over How’s Al Today. Rasaf, Uncle Kef and Flight Command, the 9-5 favorite who stumbled at the start, completed the order of finish.
Twinkle Town is owned by Four G Racing, which campaigned 2024 Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan. While McPeek eventually would like to see Twinkle Town stretch out around two turns, he’s happy to let him accomplish what he has thus far.
“It’s a little bit out of my game to have a 2-year-old go 21-and-change and keep going, right? So that’s very nice,” McPeek said. “I don’t usually press my young horses, I usually let them take me there and he’s taken us there.”
Twinkle Town went gate to wire to win a six-furlong maiden race by 6 1/4 lengths under Florent Geroux at Churchill on June 27. McPeek said he told Ortiz in the paddock that he thought Twinkle Town could be second, third or fourth, stalking on Saturday.
But Booked bore in and Flight Command stumbled out of the gate and Twinkle Town was on the lead through an opening quarter in 21.82 seconds. Booked, under Ricardo Santana Jr., rushed up to the inside of Twinkle Town and was there through a half-mile in 45.26. But he had to run hard to get there, which took his starch away in the stretch.
“He didn’t break great, they went 21-and-4, what do you think he went?” Steve Asmussen, the trainer of Booked, said. “He’s a solid horse, but a good horse won. That horse ran great. Times aren’t yielding what he just did today.”
Ortiz said he purposely kept Twinkle Town off the rail down the backside.
“I didn’t want to rush, so I put myself wide and I just waited as long as I could and when I asked him to go, he responded really, really well,” Ortiz said.
Twinkle Town is a son of Take Charge Indy who is out of the dam Take Charge Lady, a three-time Grade 1 winner that McPeek trained. Twinkle Town ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.44 and returned $9.08 to win.
“You don’t know with these young horses whether they’ll go next level, but his first race he did things so easily, we thought he’d improve off that first race and he needed to,” McPeek said. “But he’s obviously much better than the rest.”
McPeek said he would likely point Twinkle Town to the Grade 1, $300,000 Hopeful here on Sept. 6, though he seemed equally, if not more, interested in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont on Oct. 3.
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