Trainer Kenny McPeek took both of Churchill Downs’ closing-night stakes for 2-year-olds with the colt Ten City and the filly Sunny Skies and now shoots for a sweep repeat in Sunday’s $75,000 Ellis Park Juvenile and Ellis Park Debutante.
Churchill Downs’ Grade 3 Bashford Manor winner Ten City is the anticipated favorite in the seven-furlong Juvenile, which attracted a capacity field of 12 Thursday. Sunny Skies, winner of Churchill’s Debutante, could also be favored in the Ellis Park Debutante, for which there were 13 entries, with My Peeps needing a scratch to run.
Upset Brewing, a troubled second in the Debutante at Churchill who subsequently took an Ellis maiden race by 9 3/4 lengths, could compete with Sunny Skies to be the shortest-priced filly in the Ellis stakes. Bettors might be scared off by Upset Brewing’s No. 12 post, though there is a long run to the turn and there also could be defections that get her a starting position closer to the rail. But the fact that Upset Brewing is owned by 2016 Ellis leading owner Chester Thomas of nearby Madisonville could drive down Upset Brewing’s odds in her rematch with Sunny Skies. Waki Patriot, third in the Debutante that was delayed an hour when a storm hit while the horses were in the paddock, also is running in the Ellis stakes.
McPeek originally planned to train his dynamic duo of bombastic babies up to Churchill’s Grade 3 Iroquois and Grade 2 Pocahontas, both 1 1/16-mile stakes part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, whose winners earn automatic berths in and a travel stipend for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar.
“They’ve been working together and been doing really well,†McPeek said from Saratoga. “My assistant there at Keeneland said, ‘I don’t know if I can sit on these horses for another month.’ We collectively decided it would just be best to run them. We still have a month coming back to the Churchill races. And it looks like both horses have a pretty good chance.
“Anything can happen in a horse race. We all know that. I mean, last year I was the favorite in the Ellis Park Juvenile with (third place) Honor Thy Father, and Lookin At Lee beat me. Lookin At Lee goes on and places in some of the Triple Crown races.â€
Still, McPeek says Ten City “might be one of the best I’ve ever had my hands on†and uses the word “special†to describe Normandy Farm’s Sunny Skies, a daughter of 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom who won her debut at Keeneland by nine lengths before taking the Churchill stakes.
“We’re fortunate,†McPeek said. “We get a lot of young horses every spring, and some years we have a better group than others. This seems like an exceptional group. The horse that won at Saratoga the other day, Oskar Blues (in excellent time at 33-1 odds), is going in the Hopeful. Someone questioned me on Twitter why wouldn’t you run Ten City in the Hopeful? I just felt like keeping him at home. He’s in his routine; the same guy gets on him. Now I’ve got a horse for the Hopeful anyway. Keeping those two, especially, around Kentucky just seemed to be the best for them right now.â€
And part of that, he admits, is because the ultimate objective for Ten City is the Kentucky Derby and for Sunny Skies the Kentucky Oaks back at Churchill Downs.
Ellis Park Debutante
Purse: $75,000. Distance: seven furlongs. Post time: Sunday at 3:40 p.m. CT (seventh race)
pp horse (weight) jockey/trainer
Mauk’s Tuff (120) Gazader/Mauk
Flight Queen (120) Hernandez/Calhoun
Waki Patriot (120) Court/Hancock
Laudation (120) G. Saez/Asmussen
Amberspatriot (120) McMahon/Hancock
Noblame (120) Landeros/Sharp
Kelly’s Humor (120) Bridgmohan/Cox
Sunny Skies (122) Albarado/McPeek
Lullingstone (118) Borel/Hancock
Crossed (120) Pedroza/Garcia
On the Hop (120) Rocco/Scott
Upset Brewing (120) Lanerie/Bradley
A.E. My Peeps (118) A. Quinonez/Van Berg
A.E. — Also-eligible; needs scratch to run
Ellis Park Juvenile
Purse: $75,000. Distance: seven furlongs. Post time: Sunday at 4:10 p.m. CT (eighth race)
pp horse (weight) jockey/trainer
Trenton Traveler (118) Cannon/Lightner
Undercover Lover (120) Pedroza/Flint
Orbatron (118) Lanerie/Asmussen
Make Noise (120) Court/Van Berg
Big Iron (120) G. Saez/Flint
Private Vigilante (120) Bridgmohan/Asmussen
Ten City (122) Gilligan/McPeek
Ebben (120) Hernandez/Margolis
Mugrosito (120) Figueroa/Castaneda
Holding Fast (118) A. Martinez/K. Martinez
Northern Trail (120) Hill/Van Berg
Dak Attack (120) Albarado/Romans
Big opportunity for 20-year-old Jack Gilligan
Jack Gilligan picked up the Ellis Park Juvenile mount on Ten City, with Robby Albarado committed to Dak Attack. Albarado rode Ten City in his two races, both victories. Albarado does ride Sunny Skies, whom he rode at Churchill.
Gilligan was Ten City’s regular work rider before the colt won his debut at Keeneland.
“I love him,†Gilligan said. “He’s always been really, really classy, worked easily. I knew he was a nice horse back then. I’m just glad Kenny gave me a chance to get on him in a race. Hopefully we can win the race.â€
“He knows him really well,†McPeek said of the 20-year-old Gilligan. “I’m excited for him. Depending on how he runs, I’m not sure who rides him back.â€
Gilligan, the son of a Newmarket-based trainer in England, has won one stakes, aboard Crewman in Turfway Park’s $50,000 Forego in January.
“Hopefully I have another one Sunday,†he said. “This is a big opportunity. I’m really happy Kenny is giving me a shot to ride really nice horses. That’s a great thing for any jockey, and I’m still pretty young.â€
Gilligan is having a fine Ellis meet, having won 10 races to rank sixth in the standings, while riding at Indiana Grand and Belterra Park on days Ellis isn’t running. Gilligan is on course for easily his best season in his four years as a jockey, his 56 wins overall (heading into Thursday) just four off his 2016 total.
The chance to land a mount on a horse like Ten City is why he — as with many other jockeys — work a lot of horses for trainers in the mornings that he knows he won’t ride come the race. “Most trainers remember it, they remember that you put in the work,†Gilligan said. “So they will pay you back in the long run. This is a perfect example.â€
McMahon, Kennedy rejoin colony
C.J. McMahon and Ty Kennedy will begin riding regularly at Ellis Park on Friday.
Kennedy, 23, showed up from Prairie Meadows late in the meet last year, winning on his first two mounts. While he returned to Iowa this spring, he says his plan now is to make Kentucky his main base. One factor was the fact that he picked up as his agent Frank Bernis, who also books the mounts for Brian Hernandez Jr.
McMahon set a Lone Star Park record for wins (98) in a season last summer. He rode at Gulfstream Park’s summer meet this year for the time before moving on to Kentucky at the suggestion of trainer John Hancock. This is McMahon’s second go-round in Kentucky after riding here and Indiana for a few months after launching his career to great fanfare in 2011 in his native Louisiana. He has won more than 200 races each of the past two seasons.
Tiger Moth looking at Churchill Downs’ G3 Locust Grove
After winning Ellis Park’s Grade 3 Groupie Doll this past Sunday, the 5-year-old mare Tiger Moth is likely to race next in Churchill Downs’ 1 1/16-mile Locust Grove, which this year regained its Grade 3 status. Her camp is hoping that Tiger Moth retains her career-best form or that fourth time is the charm, with the mare not only 0 for 3 at her hometown track but those graded-stakes races rank among the worst of what otherwise is an admirably consistent career.
“It’s been her home for the majority of the last 10 or more months,†said trainer Brad Cox, who was sent Tiger Moth last fall by father-daughter owners John and Tanya Gunther from trainer Todd Pletcher. “She loves the track to train on. For whatever reason, it hasn’t gone well racing there.
“When they sent her to us, Tanya said, ‘She’s a filly we’ll race through the winter and try to get some ‘black-type’ (stakes wins or placings that show up in bold face in sales catalogues) on her. That’s kind of the object with all fillies. The Gunthers have a great breeding program, and she’ll add to their collection of broodmares. When she accomplished that with her third in the Grade 2 Azeri (at Oaklawn), that was huge for her.
“I told Tanya when we started breezing her, ‘I don’t think getting black type will be a problem. She’s awfully nice,’†Cox said of first getting Tiger Moth. “The first time we ran her the one-turn mile at Churchill Downs (the Grade 2 Chilukki), we were extremely disappointed she didn’t run better…. Now she’s in the best form of her life. If they’re in good form and racing sound, you carry on and let them accomplish as much as they can. There’s always next year to breed. There’s not always next year to race. Some fillies do get better with age, have their best races at 5. Looks like that’s what she’s doing now.â€
After being well-beaten in Churchill Downs’ La Troienne and Fleur de Lis, Tiger Moth earned her first stakes victory in Indiana Grand’s Mari Hulman George then her first graded triumph in the Groupie Doll.
