Clawson, 19, Gets Third Career Win
Richard starts meet 3-for-7
HENDERSON, Ky. (July 10 2016) —Katie Clawson, who began her career as a jockey toward the end of Churchill Downs meet, gained her third victory, guiding Ronald Gasaway’s Total Immersion to victory in Sunday’s second race for $4,000 claimers. Total Immersion also gave Kellyn Gorder his 400th win as a trainer.
“He was game. He did everything,†Clawson told Gorder by phone. “He went right through that hole, and there wasn’t even a hole there and he went in there. He was fantastic.â€
It was Clawson’s fourth mount of the meet. She also had two wins and two seconds in only four mounts at Churchill Downs. “The key really has just been that I have someone behind me,†said Clawson, who also works as an exercise rider for Gorder at Keeneland in Lexington.
Afterward Total Immersion’s victory, the 19-year-old Clawson was besieged with young kids wanting her goggles – she ran out of sets — and adults wanting her autograph. Goggles aren’t cheap, running $8 or more a pair.
“That’s all right, it’s worth it,†she said, adding of Ellis, “It’s really neat. This is like the real true horse-racing fans. I love the family aspect here. The horses are good, and it’s Kentucky people: down-home.â€
Lawson’s fast start is notable for another reason: She broke her neck in a training mishap at Churchill last July 21st, careening into the outside fence on a wayward horse.
“I broke my neck. The vertebrae was almost completely through the middle of it,†she said. “There are two pieces that form sort of a triangle, the vertebrae does. I had like three fractures in the fifth vertebrae. They took the fragments out, put new bone in there, and fused the fourth, fifth and sixth vertebrae. And I fractured a rib.â€
As she recuperated, it never occurred to Clawson to find something else to do.
“I knew what could happen,†she said. “If I was going to ride scared, I wasn’t going to ride. Because that’s more dangerous. I haven’t been scared on a horse since then. I have those moments when a horse is ‘getting out’ or something, and I think, ‘No, not again.’ But I think that’s normal.
“If I had been thinking about getting hurt on that mount,†she continued, referencing Total Immersion, “there was no room there. He pushed his way through. If I was thinking about that, you just can’t ride that way (fearful) and get your horse there.â€
Clawson had taken a slow approach to her career. That’s because the clock starts running on a new jockey’s apprentice weight allowances once they’ve won five races. Lawson’s mounts currently can carry 10 pounds fewer than the horse otherwise would under a race’s conditions, an amount that drops to seven after a fifth win and then ultimately to five pounds.
“I’m going on a trip at the end of July and will be gone about 10 days,†she said. “In August, I’ll have my agent and (start going all out) in September. There’s no sense in kind of ruining the momentum for the sake of a few months. So in September, I’ll be riding full time and go wherever I need to go and (working horses) for whomever I can.â€
Richard off to fast start, winning 3 of first 7 starts
Chris Richard had only raced the occasion horse before at Ellis Park. But his first summer in Kentucky, he became the leading trainer after four days.
Richard, who previously spent the spring and summer at Prairie Meadows in Iowa, won with three of his first seven starts and also had two seconds.
“We’ve got them in the right spot,†Richard said. “Some of the races weren’t able to go during the Churchill meet. So a lot of these horses were ready to go; they were fresh. We’ve been very fortunate that the races we were pointing to went,†getting enough entries to be used. “We were in really good spots, and that’s just being fortunate that your horses are doing well and then the races you intended to run them in went. They’ve had good racing luck and gotten good rides.â€
Often the first excuse if a horse gets outrun is that it didn’t like the surface. Richard said Ellis seems to be a pretty fair-playing track.Â
“I don’t really know,†he said. “This is the first meet I’ve really run at Ellis. I’ve never been here for the spring meet at Churchill. I usually went to Iowa. This is the first year I’m transitioning to Kentucky full-time. So I was at the spring meet at Churchill. Other than running the odd horse at Ellis Park the last five, six years, it will be the first time I’ve been here for the whole meet.
“At this point, with the rain and everything, it seemed like it might have been little favorable to speed. That doesn’t mean you can’t come from out of it. It just seems like the last couple of days speed has been good. But a lot of times when you get rain and have to seal the track, it gets tighter. I think as the meet goes on, it will be a pretty fair racetrack, talking with other trainers…. Overall, I think the horses ran as well as they could.â€
Richard, who only based in Kentucky during the fall for the past three years, said he doesn’t expect his lead in the standings to last.
“I’m not going to be the leading trainer, because I don’t have the numbers,†he said. “I’ve got about 30 horses, but we have some 2-year-olds who aren’t quite ready to run. You’ve got plenty of trainers with twice that amount who are ready to run. … I don’t think I’ll be running two or three a day, but I’ll still be active.â€
Richard (pronounced Ri-SHARD) said he was planning to make the circuit adjustment to Kentucky anyway, but that Ellis Park’s enhanced purses this meet “were definitely a bonus.â€
“Maggi (Moss) and a couple of my other owners had discussed it, making a change in the Midwest,†he said. “I wanted to come here to really start focusing on the younger horses.â€
Speaking of which, he said he plans to race some 2-year-olds, which is expected to be one of the hallmarks of this Ellis meet.
“It will be next month,†Richard said. “They’re about 30 days from being ready. We’re not in any hurry with our 2-year-olds. The ones that are precocious enough, that handle training well, we try to have them ready to go in August. I like doing that, and that’s kind of the mindset of the owners.
“I understand if you have a really precocious horse and want to go to Keeneland and Churchill. But the owners I have are more about taking their time with them, have some horses that are a little bit later-developing with their pedigrees. You’ll see my 2-year-olds probably hit the entry box next month.â€
Sprinting out
Robby Albarado, riding regularly at Ellis for the second year, had a very productive day Sunday at Arlington Park, his three wins including the Grade III Arlington Handicap on Kasaqui and the Grade III American Derby aboard One Mean Man, along with a third in the Grade III Modesty on Secret Someone. He finished fourth in the Grade III Stars and Stripes on favored The Pizza Man, who rallied to come up just short in a four-horse photo…. Jon Court, the six-time Ellis Park riding champion, will resume riding Friday after being sidelined three ribs. The ageless jockey sustained three cracked ribs in a tubing mishap on a lake….Â
Racing resumes Friday at 12:50 p.m. Central. Saturday’s feature is the $50,000 Don Bernhardt Memorial, with the field of eight headed by Barbados, winner of last year’s Grade III Hutcheson at Gulfstream Park.
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