The following article was submitted for my Sports Journalism class at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. I’ve received permission from my professors to post it on my pony blog. Enjoy! And if there’s a typo, don’t tell me.
Three-year-old colt Hit Show took his first step down the rose-laden path Saturday, winning the Withers Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack to earn 20 points toward Kentucky Derby qualification. Owned by Gary and Mary West, trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Manny Franco, the Kentucky-based runner successfully invaded New York and will likely return for the Wood Memorial Stakes in April.
There are countless paths to the Kentucky Derby in modern American racing, and Aqueduct is one of many tracks that offer a slate of prep races which horses can use to earn qualifying points.
While it serves as a smaller prep for the Derby, the Withers also leads more directly to the Wood Memorial, Aqueduct’s premier race, in early April. The winner of that event earns 100 points and typically qualifies for the Derby automatically.
Once a springtime stakes at Belmont Park, the Withers became a prep for the Kentucky Derby in 2012, when it was moved back on the New York Racing Association’s stakes calendar and relocated to Aqueduct. Though it has not yet produced a Derby winner, Early Voting won the event last year before taking the Preakness Stakes in Maryland.
This year’s running of the race, set at 1 ⅛ miles on dirt, was originally supposed to occur on Feb. 4, but frigid temperatures that weekend forced officials to postpone the event. As the ninth race on Aqueduct’s amended 10-race card Saturday, it attracted an eclectic field of seven horses.
Only three of the runners in the race were based in New York, while the other four spent their winters training and/or racing elsewhere. In addition to shipping horses, jockeys Frankie Pennington and Abner Adorno both traveled from Pennsylvania to ride Andiamo a Firenze and Ninetyprcentmaddie, respectively.
Adorno, who went on to win the 10th race Saturday aboard three-year-old maiden Camm’ Duke, considered it a privilege to compete in New York.
“It’s always good to win anywhere you go, but more here,” Adorno said. “This is, like we say, the big leagues, and I’m just happy that people have been helping me and giving me the opportunity.”
While Adorno and Pennsylvania-bred Ninetyprcentmaddie finished dead last in the Withers, Hit Show proved to be a far more effective invader. Going into his stakes debut after three races in Kentucky and Arkansas, the betting public agreed that Cox, his trainer, was bringing a live runner to New York and made his colt the 6-5 favorite at post time.
“I just liked the way the Withers was coming up,” Cox said about his decision to bring his horse to Aqueduct. “I thought he fit well with the group. Obviously, he was 6-5, so everybody else thought so, too.”
The only other horse to gain significant attention on the tote board was Arctic Arrogance, a three-year-old bred in New York and trained by Linda Rice. After two straight runner-up finishes in stakes competition, Rice decided to put blinkers on her runner for the Withers in an attempt to help him focus in the stretch. He went off at 8-5 odds, a close second choice behind Hit Show.
The equipment change didn’t matter in the end, as a number of runners went for the early lead and impacted Arctic Arrogance’s trip. Jockey Jose Lezcano broke well with him from the inside post and led the pack early, but 80-1 long shot Prove Right challenged on the front end immediately under young rider Jose Gomez. Both horses tired before the stretch, allowing Hit Show to breeze past on the way to a 5 ½-length victory. Arctic Arrogance finished second again.
After the race, Gomez smiled and laughed in the paddock, content with fifth place after giving his horse a fighting chance. Lezcano, a leading rider at Aqueduct, was not as amused with his seventh straight defeat of the day. Franco, his winning contemporary, was more than content with Hit Show’s perfect trip from off the pace.
“He broke so sharp out of there and put me in a perfect position,” Franco said. “I wanted to be fourth or fifth and I was following the right horse (Arctic Arrogance), and I was so happy with the position. When it was time to move, he was there for me.”
Rice believed that the pace scenario was partially to blame for Arctic Arrogance’s loss, but also said that the result confirmed his affinity for shorter distances. His next race will likely be the Gotham Stakes, Aqueduct’s mile-long Derby prep in March.
“After today’s effort, if things had gone better, I was probably going to skip the Gotham and go to the Wood,” Rice said. “But Jose (Lezcano) and I were just chatting and I think he may truly be better at a flat mile.”
For Hit Show, the logical next race is the Wood Memorial in early April. Though he doesn’t yet compare well to the best three-year-olds around the country, he seems to have found a soft group of runners in New York and could develop further in training.
“He’ll go back to Belmont tonight and chill out there for a while and recover and we’ll come up with a game plan for him,” Cox said. “It very well could be the Wood Memorial. He obviously likes the racetrack there and we’ll see how things go.”