Alex and JoAnn Lieblong jumped into the racing game 15 years ago to help erase the memory of a bizarre and trying ordeal, and on Saturday they will participate at the sports highest level when Telling attempts to give the couple a Breeders’ Cup win in the $3 million Turf.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Even if he had never seen the past-performance lines on Battle of Hastings, Greg Fox has seen enough in recent mornings to know what the 4-year-old gelding is all about.
“He’s absolutely reliable and honest,” said Fox.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The way you could tell Zenyatta was getting close to the Churchill Downs backstretch was by the helicopter following her convoy from the airport. Not just a chopper, but a police escort leading the gleaming Creech Horse Transportation semi-trailer as it took the short drive from nearby Standiford Field, where Zenyatta’s plane had landed at 11:35, to Churchill. The Creech truck was from Troy, Mo., but that was no Trojan horse who descended the steps of the trailer just past noon on Tuesday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Gio Ponti will remain on turf and run in the Breeders' Cup Mile instead of making his first start on dirt in the Breeders' Cup Classic on Saturday at Churchill Downs, owner Shane Ryan of Castleton Lyons announced Monday afternoon.
Silent Joy, who was expected to draw in off the also-eligible list and start Friday in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, was transferred to trainer Dale Romans’s barn from Michelle Nihei on Monday and has been withdrawn from consideration for the race.
Silent Joy is owned by Adam Wachtel, Nils Brous, and Danny Gargan. The 2-year-old daughter of Kitten’s Joy won her career debut over the Saratoga turf course on Aug. 25 before finishing fifth, beaten sixth lengths by division leader Winter Memories, in the Grade 3 Ms. Grillo Stakes on Oct. 3.
Trainer Steve Asmussen thought Thiskyhasnolimit had the potential to be a superstar. While the son of Sky Mesa has yet to reach that status, he enters Saturday’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in perhaps the best form of his life and is quickly becoming one of the buzz horses on the backstretch.
Jordy Y has not had much experience on the dirt. However, trainer Wayne Catalano said Monday it is “90 percent certain” Jordy Y will run in the $2 million Juvenile Fillies as opposed to the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf, to which she also was pre-entered.
Catalano was pleased enough with Jordy Y’s five-furlong dirt work on Sunday to make that decision. Jordy Y, a daughter of Congrats, has raced exclusively on synthetic surfaces, winning a maiden and allowance at Arlington before finishing second in the Arlington-Washington Lassie and third in the Grade 1 Alcibiades.
Though Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile will be the first dirt race for J. B.’s Thunder, trainer Al Stall is quite content that his horse has had enough experience over that surface.
The colt’s first seven breezes were over dirt – including his first five at Churchill Downs – before he won his debut on the grass at Saratoga and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity over Keeneland’s synthetic surface. Stall said he chose to race J. B.’s Thunder over those surfaces because he wanted to run the horse around two turns.
There’s a natural tendency to root for the home team, and European racing people tend to favor their own traveling overseas to face foreign competition. Thinking along those lines has Midday a sure winner of the Filly and Mare Turf, Goldikova’s stiffest BC Mile competition England-based Paco Boy, and Bekhabad or Dangerous Midge there to pick up the pieces should Workforce falter in the Turf.