Verstappen ($34.30) rallies from well back to take Elkhorn Stakes

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It was so windy and chilly Saturday at Keeneland you might have thought you were in Ireland.

Turf-course ceremonies following the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes reflected as much, too, as Irish natives Brendan Walsh and Declan Cannon teamed to win the $333,157 race with 16-1 shot Verstappen.

“Declan rode him to perfection,” Walsh said after Verstappen out-gamed Red Knight by a head in the three-turn, 1 1/2-mile race contested over a course rated good. “I’m delighted for him. He does a lot of morning work for me, and this is a great reward.”

Verstappen and Red Knight both rallied from well back after Tiz the Bomb set a solid pace when pushed along by the 2022 Elkhorn winner, Channel Maker. With a quarter-mile to run, the front-runners started giving way to the back runners, with Verstappen and Red Knight emerging from the pack to stage a furious duel to the wire.

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“My horse traveled so good, and I just rode him with confidence,” said Cannon, who was winning a graded stakes for just the fifth time, and the first at Keeneland. “When he turned in, he stretched out all the way to the line.”

The stakes victory was the first for Verstappen, a 4-year-old War Front gelding owned by the partnership of Andrew Farm, For the People Racing, and Windmill Manor Farm. He was coming off a runner-up finish in his stakes debut, the Kentucky Cup Classic last month at Turfway Park.

Verstappen returned $34.30 after finishing in 2:29.28.

Another Mystery ran on late to be third, another two lengths behind the 9-year-old Red Knight. Then came Channel Maker, Tiz the Bomb, Howe Street, Rising Empire, and Value Engineering. Shawdyshawdyshawdy was an early scratch and Highest Honors was a gate scratch from an original field of 10 older horses.

The $2 exacta (9-5) paid $236.22, the $1 trifecta (9-5-4) returned $1,040.92, and the 10-cent superfecta (9-5-4-1) was worth $519.33.

*** One race earlier, Aunt Becca ($28.10) was ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr. in posting a 6 1/4-length upset of 2-5 favorite Socially Selective in a $106,700 allowance in which just four horses crossed under the wire. Two of seven scheduled starters were scratched, and Devious Stares suffered a catastrophic injury midway down the backstretch, leading to his euthanization.

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