LAST week’s Grade 3 Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs saw the 2024 Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan get back to winning ways, a rare enough feat for the classic winners in recent years.
Brian Hernandez guided him to a length and a quarter success over Antiquarian in the nine-furlong contest and, reminiscent of his Kentucky Derby win, Mystik Dan relaxed off the pace along the rail, cut the corner at the top of the stretch and powered home to victory – his first in six races since the Derby triumph in a three-horse photo finish with Sierra Leone and Forever Young.
“When Mystik Dan is right, he’s such a fun horse to ride because he makes my job so easy,” Hernandez said afterwards.
The race was the highlight of Stephen Foster Preview Day with six races as preps for Saturday, June 28th, which features the $1 million Grade 1 Stephen Foster.
Trainer Kenny McPeek was pleased with his charge ahead of that race: “We have another good horse in Gould’s Gold, who set a track record here. So, we have a little bit of a dilemma. Both horses will be nominated and we’ll make a decision on whether we keep them together or separate them.
Santa Anita
Santa Anita saw another performance of interest when Bob Baffert’s four-year-old Nysos took the seven-furlong Grade 3 Triple Bend Stakes.
In an interrupted career, the Nyquist colt had lost his unbeaten record but emerged with credit last time when a narrow third to Mindframe in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes over Derby weekend. That had been his first run in 455 days. Many still think he could be among the top older horses in the US and this five-and-a-half-length win from the useful Dr. Venkman keeps him to the top of the west coast horses.
THERE was Grade 1 jumps action to kick off the Saratoga season and victory in the Grade 1 Beverly R. Steinman Hurdle went to the Riverdee Stable/Clancy Bloodstock graduate Proven Innocent.
Freddie Procter partnered the Jack Fisher-trained grey seven-year-old son of Blame for owners Bruton Street-US, to get the better of Evie’s Prince and Bernard Dalton by three quarters of a length with the Riverdee Stables runner Awakened (Conor Tierney) in third. Paddy O’Hanlon was unseated from the Keri Brion-trained favourite, Carloun.
Emotional success
The meeting ended with an emotional success for Coach Case in a maiden special weight race on the turf.
Just 10 days after top New York trainer Christophe Clement had passed away at the age of 59 after battling a rare eye cancer, his son Miguel, who had been an assistant trainer and took over his dad’s stable, notched his first victory as a trainer with this winner.