Ellis Park Debutante: Bivian B just hitting the board would be bonus

For trainer John Hancock, his 2-year-old filly Bivian B has done her job just being in the starting gate for Sunday’s $75,000 Ellis Park Debutante. Hitting the board or winning would be an unbelievable bonus.

Mind you, Hancock believes the filly — co-owned by his wife, Donna, and Lexington’s Gatewood Bell and named after the trainer’s mom, who died last year — is good enough to win the seven-eighths of a mile stakes, Sunday’s co-feature with the Ellis Park Juvenile. In her only start, the $10,000 yearling purchase prevailed by 5 3/4 lengths to create a large and emotional winner’s circle throng at Ellis Park, where Hancock is the third generation in his Henderson-based family to train.

“It would be great to win it here at home,” he said Friday morning while watching Bivian B gallop under exercise rider Savannah Goebel. “But just to be on the board here at home … to think that I was a big fan of bringing the stakes back, and the way the horses who ran in it have gone on and developed to make really nice 2-year-old fillies and 3-year-old fillies. It’s a big deal. It doesn’t make any difference if we hit the board or not — we’re a part of it. You can’t be a part of it if you don’t walk over.

“It’s unfortunate that Gatewood has business in France and can’t be here, but pretty much all of my family is coming. One, because she’s in a stakes. But second because she’s named after my mom. Everybody has kind of been with her and backed her from the get-go. She’s got her own little fan club. The whole family is really excited about it, because it keeps us tied to my mom.”

Both stakes appear to be wide open, with the Tom Amoss-trained Serengeti Empress the 3-1 favorite off finishing a well-beaten fourth in Saratoga’s Grade 3 Schuylerville, with the jockey that day dropping the whip at the quarter pole. There must be something about lost whips at the Spa, because the Steve Asmussen-trained Whiskey Echo is the 9-5 favorite in the Juvenile after coming in a respectable third in Saratoga’s Grade 3 Sanford, with that jock also parting ways with his stick late in the race.

Whiskey Echo has done the most in the Juvenile field but breaks from the extreme outside in the field of 11 colts and geldings. While there’s a long run into the turn, there’s also the possibility in a large field that Whiskey Echo will either have to be asked for too much speed early or risk being sucked too far back or hung out wide on the turn. But no rider is hotter than Shaun Bridgmohan, who has vaulted to a two-win lead, 21-19, over apprentice jockey Edgar Morales heading into Friday’s racing. Bridgmohan has a shot to win his fourth stakes of the meet.

Hancock is sticking with Morales for the Debutante, though Bivian B won’t benefit from the jockey’s five-pound apprentice allowance because it is a stakes.

“I had phone calls, and I could have brought a rider in to ride her, an older rider,” Hancock said. “But the young man, I believe in him. We’ve had a good summer and he knows her. My grandpa always told me, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’”

Morales this week earned his first stakes victory, guiding The Money Dance to victory in Wednesday’s $150,000 Governor’s Stakes for Indiana-bred 3-year-olds at Indiana Grand.

“I know the filly,” Morales said. “John is a really nice guy and gave me the chance. It showed a lot of loyalty. I think she has a big chance, that the distance will help her. It’s big to win a stakes. Let’s see if we can win another one here.”

Hancock loves Bivian B’s No. 7 post.

 “I like being right in the middle,” he said. “Especially since there seems to be some early speed on the inside and a little bit of speed on the far outside. It gives her an opportunity to get away clean and take back and drop over. It will give the bug boy a chance to see what develops in front of him. Then at the same time, if something falls apart and nobody goes, she’s got enough speed that she can go on about her way.

“She’s really come back sharp from her last race; I mean, really sharp. She won but she just kind of went through the motions. She didn’t come up with that really hard kick down the lane like I thought she would. She had to struggle the last part to get in front, but she galloped out well. I think going seven-eighths of a mile, she’ll get a chance to level off and we’ll find out where she fits.”

A victory would be Hancock’s first in a stakes dating to when he began training in 1981, according to Equibase statistics. That’s with few opportunities as the best horses he develops usually are sold.

Bivian B was broken to a saddle last fall right at Ellis Park by Hancock’s exercise riders.

“The first racetrack she ever stepped a foot on was Ellis Park,” Hancock said. “She was so smart, she had the attitude. Then once she started (training), she just caught on so fast. When I kept watching her, it was a no-brainer: Bivian B, that was her name. I remember calling Gatewood in February and said, ‘We’ve got a runner.’ And she is. But the bottom line is this: She doesn’t have to ever do anything else. She’s done what she was bought to do and she did what she had to do for us.”

Amoss remains bullish on Serengeti Empress

Serengeti Empress lived up to Tom Amoss’ expectations in winning her July 4 debut by 5 1/2 lengths at Indiana Grand, where the trainer has a substantial division. Amoss expected owner Joel Politi’s $70,000 yearling purchase to turn in another big effort in Saratoga’s Grade 3 Schuylerville 16 days later.

Serengeti Empress was in the thick of things when Javier Castellano dropped his whip.

“She’s a horse we’ve always liked, and she didn’t disappoint us when she broke her maiden,” Amoss said from Saratoga. “When she came to Saratoga, the rider dropped the stick right before they turned for home. I guess he figured that was going to be it, because she really wasn’t ridden after that, which is puzzling, to say the least. But she’s come back to train well and we’re looking to make amends. This is a very nice filly. We had a lot of confidence even coming into here. It just didn’t go our way… So rather than stay up here, we said, ‘OK, forget it. We’re just going to regroup.’”

Corey Lanerie, the two-time defending Ellis riding champion and four-time titlist here overall, picks up the mount.

Thomas, Bradley get another crack at Debutante with Somewhere

A year owner Chester Thomas of Madisonville and trainer Buff Bradley finished second in Churchill Downs’ Debutante with a maiden, Upset Brewing, who subsequently won an Ellis Park maiden race by almost 10 lengths. Expectations were high going into the Ellis Park Debutante, with Upset Brewing second by a length as the favorite behind 11-1 winner Kelly’s Humor.

Upset Brewing has proven a useful horse while still seeking that second win, albeit with seven seconds in 14 starts, including three stakes. But now Thomas and Bradley are back in the Ellis Park Debutante with Somewhere, a 5 3/4-length maiden winner at Churchill Downs in her second start. And while they believe Somewhere is better than Upset Brewing, they are keeping expectations muted.

“We’ll find out Sunday,” Thomas said of Somewhere. “She’s well-bred and she’s doing everything right. We’ve got a lot of hope for her. Of course it’s a horse race, and as you leave the first-time winners, then you step up and it keeps getting deeper. But so far so good. Upset Brewing, she’s a nice filly and hard-knocker. She’s come this close to being a stakes-winner, but she seems to always hook a bear.

“Somewhere hasn’t run against winners yet, but we think she’ll like the distance. We’re improving. We all like to win, but this is a tough game.”

Bradley said Somewhere “did in her second start what we expected out of her in her first start. But when she didn’t break well, she kind of took off and used herself in the middle part of the race and got tired coming down the lane.

“But coming back in her second start, she was very professional and drew away at the top of the stretch. It was nice to see that she’d matured that much. We have wanted to stretch her out, and we would have stretched her out even farther if the opportunity had come about. But the Debutante, we picked that out as soon as she won.”

A good effort could earn Somewhere a shot at Churchill Downs’ Grade 2, 1 1/16-mile Pocahontas, whose winner gets an entry fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Nov. 2 in Louisville. Bradley acknowledges the Juvenile Fillies at his hometown track is in the back of their minds.

“We’ve worked with her quite a bit because eventually we’d like to stretch her out to two turns,” he said. “The seven-eighths is good. The whole thing we’ve been working on is getting her to relax early. Sometimes she wants to do a little too much early, but we’ve been doing that with her training.

“Compared to that filly last year, this filly has quite a bit more talent, I believe. I can say that because it’s the same owner. The other filly is a very nice filly and runs her race every time. But this filly has more upside to her at this point.”

Ellis Park Debutante

Purse: $75,000. Distance: 7 furlongs. Division: 2-year-old fillies

Post time: Sunday at 4:10 p.m. CT (eighth race)        odds

PP horse (weight)           jockey/trainer

Ellis Park Juvenile

Purse: $75,000. Distance: 7 furlongs. Division: 2-year-olds

Post time: Sunday at 4:40 p.m. CT (ninth race)

PP horse (weight)            jockey/trainer           odds

8.  Overanalyzer (120)        Ulloa/Elliott               8-1

9.  Tobacco Road (120)      Lanerie/Asmussen         9-2

10. Mine Inspector (120)      Graham/V. Foley           8-1

11. Whiskey Echo (120)       Bridgmohan/Asmu