Flatlined Returns To Old Self In Cliff Guilliams under Rocco

 Flatlined rallied through the stretch under Joe Rocco Jr. to get by One Mean Man and pacesetting One Go All Go for a half-length victory in the $50,000 Cliff Guilliams Handicap at Ellis Park.


The 5-year-old gelding has finished no better than seventh in four starts since capturing Gulfstream Park’s Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale, which followed being second by a neck in that track’s $100,000 El Prado. Turned out for a month after he was 10th in Churchill Downs’ Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on May 6, Flatlined covered 1 1/16 miles over firm turf in 1:41.67 and paid $17.20 as the fourth choice in the field of eight older horses.

“Yeah, those four races were pretty rough,” said winning trainer Scooter Dickey, who is stabled at Churchill Downs. “It was a lot of different things.  He had a lot of different little issues.  But it is good to have him back.  He beat a lot of good horses down there (at Gulfstream Park).  We knew he had the talent.”

“He’s a really super cool horse,” said jockey Joe Rocco, who won two races on the card. “He has a lot of quality to him, as you can tell from his past performances. Scooter did a really good job getting him here… When I fanned him out wide, he really just took off on me and I could see we were making up a lot of ground on the leaders.  I really did think that we had a good chance to get there and he just went on by them. He just kept running.  It was fun.”

Flatlined, a son of Flatter, now is 6-4-2 in 24 starts, earning $387,725 with the $30,070 payday for owners Brian Hytrek, Rodney Paden and Ryan Kuhn.

The Bernie Flint-trained One Mean Man, a multiple stakes-winner ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr., put the most pressure on One Go All Go, winning that battle before losing the war.

“Turning for home, I know my little horse is a fighter,” Hernandez said. “I didn’t worry about the horse on my inside.  I knew he wasn’t going to let him by him, but that other horse (Flatlined) is a good horse; he arrived on the scene late and just nailed us.  You’re talking about two quality horses and we were just second-best today. The racetrack is playing very fair.  Winners are coming from everywhere. The crowd was good; really into it. It’s exciting here today.”

Declan Cannon guided One Go All Go through a methodical pace, only to get edged late while finishing a neck in front of 2016 Guilliams winner Pleuven, the 6-5 favorite.

“He gets out there in front, he likes to be ridden like that,” Cannon said. “He’s an old boy, he knows what he’s doing. He ran an honest race. Maybe he’ll go to Kentucky Downs; he won there (an allowance race) last year. He tries hard. I’m just waiting for him to show up this year. He’s been knocking at the door.”

(Photos below: Flatlined won the Cliff Guilliams Handicap under Joe Rocco Jr. Credit: Coady Photography)