By Jennie Rees
Kentucky HBPA
Turfway Park’s Synthetic Championships are the real deal. In its second year, Saturday night’s stakes quartet over Turfway’s all-weather Tapeta surface further stamps itself as an important fixture on the Kentucky horse-racing calendar.
Saturday’s four $250,000 stakes — two for males and two for fillies and mares — give the all-winter track a second big racing day, behind only the March 21 Jeff Ruby Steaks card that will feature six stakes. The 1 1/8-mile Prairie Bayou, six-furlong Holiday Cheer and Holiday Inaugural presented by Claiborne Farm (six furlongs for fillies and mares) each drew at least the capacity 12 horses that can run. The mile My Charmer presented by Claiborne Farm for fillies and mares drew 11.
Turfway Park stakes schedule here
First post is 5:55 p.m. ET, with the stakes starting with Race 6 (the My Charmer) at 8:25 p.m.
The Synthetic Championships are positioned to keep horses in the state for several more weeks before they head to warmer climates. They give other horses one more race before getting a winter break. But the stakes also provide trainers a reason to send horses to Kentucky.
“If you put the money up, people are going to come,” said trainer Brendan Walsh, who has three horses running in two stakes Saturday. “The incentive isn’t there to get everything out of Kentucky anymore after Churchill Downs. With the purses, you have to take a good look at Turfway.”
Interstate 75 goes both ways. For instance, shipping from Florida will be Howard Wolowitz, who won last year’s Holiday Cheer after running ninth (beaten only three lengths) in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) following victory in Kentucky Downs’ Grade 1 Franklin-Simpson. The Joe Orseno-trained Horsepower, a stakes-winner over the Presque Isle Tapeta, also comes from South Florida for the Prairie Bayou.
Four horses based at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack, with its synthetic main track, are shipping south: Caitlinhergrtness (trainer Kevin Attard) and Queens Command (Martin Drexler) for the My Charmer; Uphill Dance (Rachel Haldren) for the Holiday Inaugural and Dresden Road (Lorne Richards) for the Prairie Bayou. While stabled at Turfway, trainer Larry Rivelli used victory in Woodbine’s Grade 2 Kennedy Road as the launching pad to the Holiday Cheer for Nobals, the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner.
Four trainers who use Kentucky as their main base much of the year have three entries apiece in the stakes. They are:
Walsh: Pondering, Civetta (Holiday Inaugural) and Cameo Performance (Prairie Bayou); Brad Cox: Literate (My Charmer), Ellen Jay (Holiday Inaugural) and Encino (Prairie Bayou); Kelsey Danner: Otago (Prairie Bayou), Nice As Pie (Holiday Inaugural) and Run Carson (Holiday Cheer); and Mike Maker: Out On Bail, Run Curtis Run (Holiday Cheer) and Gata Brazil (Holiday Inaugural).
Pondering and Civetta are 3-year-old fillies owned by Godolphin, which also has the Cox-trained Encino in the Prairie Bayou. Pondering comes into the Holiday Inaugural off victory in Woodbine’s Grade 3 Bessarabian at seven furlongs. With this Turfway start, Pondering will have raced at all five Kentucky tracks, including a second in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Franklin and victory in Ellis Park’s Kentucky Downs Preview Ladies Turf Sprint. While she’s won at shorter distances on turf, Walsh believes Saturday’s six furlongs will help Pondering.
“When she’s good, she’s very good,” Walsh said. “She ran a great race at Woodbine. She’s a very, very talented filly. She’s been at Turfway all year, and she works very well over the surface there. If she runs her best race, it should make her very competitive. The six, seven furlongs is probably her distance, with plenty of pace in front of her. But that’s an awkward distance (on turf) in this country. This is a nice distance for her.”
The stakes-winning and graded-stakes placed Civetta is making her third start off a freshening as she heads into her synthetic debut.
“This should be a good spot for her, too,” Walsh said. “I don’t think there is much between the two of them. She’s a half-sister to Santin, with whom we won a couple of Grade 1s, so she’s a valuable filly as she is.” Like Santin, winner of Churchill Downs’ 2022 Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic and the Arlington Million run under the Twin Spires that year, Civetta is out of Godolphin’s Medaglia d’Oro mare Sentiero Italia.
Cameo Performance comes into Prairie Bayou off a closing third in Woodbine’s Grade 3 Autumn Stakes at the same nine-furlong distance. “Off that run at Woodbine would make him very competitive,” Walsh said.
Irad Ortiz, fresh off his first Churchill Downs riding title, comes back from Florida to ride Pondering and Cameo Performance, along with Literate and Howard Wolowitz.
Danner says the Synthetic Championships provide another opportunity for grass horses after Churchill Downs closes. “It gives them another race if you plan on turning them out,” she said. “For the mares, it gives them one more shot at black type before the breeding shed.”
Prime example: Nice as Pie, who will race for the 10th time at Turfway in her 20th career start. She’s 5-3-4 overall, earning $466,633 for owner-breeder Dede McGehee, with all her wins coming at the northern Kentucky track.
“She’s doing really well,” Danner said. “She obviously likes Turfway, that’s her track. This is her last race before being bred. Hopefully she goes out with a bang.”
Multiple stakes-winner Otago makes his synthetic debut in the Prairie Bayou, but he’s trained at Turfway Park for two years. (Danner makes the track a year-round hub while also stabling at Churchill Downs seasonally.) Run Carson, second in last year’s Holiday Cheer, will scratch if an allowance race goes, Danner said.
Saturday’s Turfway stakes purses each include $50,000 for registered Kentucky-breds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund. Even for horses not bred in Kentucky, the Synthetic Championships provide higher purses than the turf stakes offered in the next few weeks at Gulfstream Park and the Fair Grounds.
“Saturday is another example of Kentucky’s racetracks working with the horsemen to find ways to strengthen the product throughout the state,” said Alex Foley, executive director of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association, which represents racehorse owners and trainers at the state’s five thoroughbred tracks. “The Synthetic Championships will put the focus on Turfway Park this weekend, providing one of the winter’s best betting cards. We see the event only growing each year.”