BILL Mott grinned the way only Bill Mott can grin, walking toward one of the flat screen TVs near the paddock on Saturday at Gulfstream Park. You know the look, if you’ve ever interviewed him, the sort of, “I’d answer your question if it were a better question,” or better yet, “I’ll let you know what I want you to know and probably nothing more.”
Never malicious and always a bit shrewd and calculated, Mott gives what he wants. After watching Hidden Scroll make a dozen other three-year-old maidens look very ordinary, Mott stated the obvious with that grin.
“Well, we know he handles the slop anyway,” he said. “We got that part out of the way.”
Indeed.
Hidden Scroll handled the slop, the one stall and his rivals about as well as an unraced maiden can. Juddmonte Farm’s homebred son of Hard Spun won the fourth race on Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup card, a mile maiden special weight worth $60,000, and undoubtedly added his name to many “Kentucky Derby Watch” lists in the process.
He won by 14 lengths in 1m 34.84secs after racing for the most part on the lead through splits of :22.53sec, :44.75sec, 1:09.43 and 1:21.95.
He also caught the eye of several of Mott’s colleagues, who stopped to offer congratulations while he watched the replay.
“Very, very sneaky,” said Joe Orseno, who sent out seventh-place finisher Lahinch.
“Good horse, very good horse,” said Gustavo Delgado, trainer of the fourth-place Bodexpress.
Trainer Chuck Simon went a step further, digging deep into the recesses of his memory to another powerful first-out winner for Mott.
“You know who he looked like? Elusive Quality,” Simon said. “I was at Belmont that day. It was a rainy, nasty day. There were about four of us there. Same kind of day, muddy.”
“I ran him a mile and a sixteenth, first out of the box, and Ramon Perez rode him,” Mott said.
Elusive Quality broke his maiden going that 1 1/16-mile trip Mott mentioned, under Perez, and by 11 1/2 lengths. The son of Gone West out of the Hero’s Honor mare Touch Of Greatness went on to a productive career highlighted by victories in the Grade 3 Jaipur and Poker Handicaps at Belmont and a runner-up finish to Honour And Glory in the Grade 2 King’s Bishop at Saratoga in his fourth start. Elusive Quality raced for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum then enjoyed a stellar run as a stallion at Gainsborough Stud and Darley America.
Bricks building success story
BRICKS and Mortar rallied to win the inaugural Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational. Owned by Klaravich Stable and William Lawrence and trained by Chad Brown, the son of Giant’s Causeway was sent off second choice but won like an odds-on shot, rolling to a two-and-a-half-length and neck score over Aidan O’Brien’s Irish-bred filly Magic Wand, with Wayne Lordan, and Delta Prince.
Castellano double
JAVIER Castellano won two stakes on the day, City Of Light and Stonestreet Stable’s Dream Pauline in the Grade 3 Fasig-Tipton Hurricane Bertie.
The four-year-old daughter of Tapit, winner of the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl on December 15th at Gulfstream, came up the inside in the stretch to win by three and a half lengths from 44/1 longshot Pacific Gale with Stormy Embrace third and champion female sprinter and Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Shamrock Rose fourth in the field of eight.
Smart Sense
AZTEC Sense stretched his win streak to nine in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper over a mile on the main track and thus gave trainer Jorge Navarro his 1,000th win.
The six-year-old Street Sense gelding, last seen winning the Claiming Crown Jewel on December 1st at Gulfstream, won by a length and three-quarters over late-running Breaking Lucky.
Aztec Sense was vanned off after the race but X-rays were clean.