Walsh weighs his top 3-year-olds' options after big Preakness weekend
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Kentucky-based trainer Brendan Walsh came home without the hardware from Pimlico’s major 3-year-old stakes, but with a hefty check, as his barn’s consistency through the weekend earned him top placing in the trainer bonus system offered by 1/ST Racing to horsemen in stakes races over Preakness weekend, May 16-17.
It was a belated birthday present for Walsh, a native of Ireland who turned 52 on May 15. The bonus system tracks trainers’ results through the weekend stakes using a point system, and Walsh earned the top prize of $50,000 from the $100,000 pot. He started off with a victory in the Hilltop for 3-year-old fillies on the turf with Play With Fire. Later on Friday, Paris Lily nearly pulled off a front-running upset in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan for 3-year-old fillies, caught late by favored Margie’s Intention.
Early on the Saturday card, Walsh sent out Austere to finish second in the Grade 3 Gallorette. In the Preakness, he saddled longshot Gosger, who was clear by some five lengths in the stretch before getting nailed at the wire in a miraculous comeback by favored Journalism.
“That’s the game, right?” said Walsh, who still expressed immense pride in his lightly raced colt’s effort.
Gosger will skip the June 7 Belmont Stakes in Saratoga to run in the summer in either the Haskell or Jim Dandy. Another Walsh 3-year-old, Grade 1 winner East Avenue, is most likely to start next in the Grade 3, $400,000 Matt Winn Stakes on June 8 at Churchill Downs.
East Avenue, whose biggest win came in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity last fall, was a close second in the Grade 1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, then eighth in the Kentucky Derby, when he was one of those who appeared to struggle with the sloppy, sealed track. The colt would be shortening up to 1 1/16 miles for the Winn.
“You’d love to see him going a one-turn mile,” Walsh said. “A cutback to a mile and a sixteenth wouldn’t be a bad move, and maybe we’d cut him back again, depending how he runs in the Matt Winn.”
East Avenue returned to the work tab on Sunday at Churchill, covering a half-mile in 49 seconds.
Nominations close May 21 for the Matt Winn, which has been indicated as a possible next start for at least three other horses emerging from the Kentucky Derby: Grade 3 Jeff Ruby winner Final Gambit, who closed from last to finish fourth in his first start on dirt; Blue Grass winner Burnham Square, who was sixth in the Derby after behind checked hard near the half-mile pole; and Grade 2 Rebel winner Coal Battle, who was 11th.
– additional reporting by David Grening
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