CT Classic – Grade II
1 1/8 Mile Dirt Stake Purse $800.000 Open 3 Year Olds And Up.

1st      Antonym       Mb Stables        Gonzalez Ru

Take a seven year old that had never won a stakes race after 49 races put it into one of the richest grade two’s of the year, add to that a short femur and what do you get……
Well this horse had been claimed six times before today and only 3 of his 20 wins had come on a pay track but he is now a grade two winner for a trainer that has dominated for so long and that showed their complete dedication to the game by going to the free track to claim this one at the start of the year.
So is this win a shock? Well despite all of the seemingly impossible circumstances that led to this win, no not really. He worked a 1.10 and 1 for six furlongs and 1.36 and 1 for the mile, as good as anything in the race and he had some advantage being drawn on the rail with a ton of experience and a solid 16.1hh frame. Sure in his first two races for the new trainer he was beaten a total of 14 lengths in a couple of ungraded races and yes he was beaten in a grade three handicap with a nice low weight but what we must not forget is that this is a computer game and as such it is not about what happened before necessarily it is more what about happens on the day. Railing like a greyhound from the one gate he led from the start and that was key to this victory, only once in his 49 races had he ever made the lead out of the gate so that was the most important part of the race for him. Somehow Mb Stables managed to get this horse to run exactly the right race on the day, it didn’t work the last time he shot out of the gate but on this new engine we see it far more often.
He held on with every muscle straining to a head advantage on the line in possibly one of the bravest wins ever seen in the CT Classic. As i said when i wrote this race up, i love to see an old horse run well so this win filled me with joy. Congratulations!

2nd        Aerialist       Mb Stables         Velazquez J R

When things are going right then things go very well at HRP and after a time when even Mb Stables was questioning the race engine with some disappointing results it seems the trainer is back on top and ready for the BC series. If you have two horses in a race like this that are drawn well it gives you the opportunity to run a brick wall up front and that is exactly what happened and the two stable runners sat alongside each other in first and second for the entire race. Like the winner this one wasn’t exactly a stand out chance but everything went right and he came out in the perfect stalk and from then on the race was over for everyone else.

3rd        Dutty John Crow       Night Rider Stables       Saez L

Well who should be third but the third horse in the running for the entire race. Running from a terrible gate he got the start he needed but of course tracking wide he didn’t have the same sort of run as the first two. He never gave up though and ran a cracker for third proving that he is a heck of a lot better than his poor efforts in the BEL and the Haskell. This run will have pleased the trainer and they will be looking at may be one more big effort before the year comes to and end.

4th          Broken Tap      Arindel          Jaramillo E

The only runner in the top four to actually improve a place he moved from fifth in the first quarter to fourth at the end. This was another solid effort from the six year old warrior but his race was over from the gate when he slotted into what should’ve been the perfect tracking position but it soon looked apparent that nothing was going to come from off the pace.

Categories: Grade II, STAKES ARTICLES