Alex Lieblong hung a left, around some plastic chain link fencing, through a hallway under the clubhouse box seat stairs toward the late afternoon diners noshing their desserts at tables on the porch. He hadn’t made the walk in more than a decade and didn’t need a map.
“Been there,” Lieblong said, walking through a gap in the buffet and some temporary fences separating the Porch from the Jim Dandy Bar.
Lieblong made the walk with his wife JoAnn in 2015 after Embellish The Lace won the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes and the year before when The Big Beast won the Grade 1 King’s Bishop. They also earned a trip that way in 2009 and 2010 when Telling won the Grade 1 Sword Dancer. That’s a serious Grade 1 haul for the head of an investment firm with bank, gas and oil holdings and the chairman of the Arkansas Racing Commission.
“It’s great being back up here,” Lieblong said. “I guess I’ve won six Grade 1s and every one of them has been in New York.”
The tally actually improved to seven Saturday thanks to a determined victory by his homebred gelding Reef Runner in the Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes going 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf. A 5-year-old gelding by The Big Beast, Reef Runner won the Jaipur by a half-length over last year’s winner Ag Bullet with John The Beer Man third and 3-1 favorite My Boy Prince fifth in the field of 10.
Reef Runner won the Jaipur off a more than two-month freshening after his fourth in the Grade 1 Al Quoz Sprint on the Dubai World Cup card at Meydan Racecourse, which came about a month after he won the Grade 2 1351 Turf Sprint at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Saudi Arabia. Irad Ortiz Jr. rode the gelding in Saudi and Saturday, nearly guiding Reef Runner to a course-record performance winning in 1:00.02 over the firm turf.
Lieblong praised trainer David Fawkes for the development of Reef Runner, who was gelded last summer after a stretch of seven straight defeats. He’s won five of eight since and the Jaipur punched a return ticket to the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint through the Breeders’ Cup Challenge and also spoiled the California-based mare Ag Bullet’s chances of a repeat win.
“The only thing we could ask for is for the gelding to not be in the race,” Ag Bullet’s trainer Richard Baltas quipped after the race. “She ran great. I loved the way she was doing all week, a bit of a handful, Johnny rode her perfect. I wanted her up close because the track can be fast and she laid off the speed horse. She had her shot to win it and the other horse ran her down. This horse just got good after they gelded him. That’s the one thing about geldings, you can run them forever. Great effort, great horse.”
Reef Runner proved that in the Jaipur.
Sent off 5-1 and third choice of 10, Reef Runner set up shop behind John The Beer Man and Ag Bullet in the early stages and just off through the opening quarter in :21.19 over the firm turf.
Ortiz loved the position, especially after a sharp start that came with a slight bump with Works For Me.
“That was great,” Ortiz said. “When he broke sharp, I was really happy with that. He put me in a really good position.”
The Beer Man still led through the half in :43.13 with Ag Bullet just off and ready to take command in the stretch. Ag Bullet took the lead from John The Beer Man at the eighth pole and reached for the finish inside the final sixteenth. Reef Runner came to the top pair in deep stretch and finally took the lead about 40 yards from home. Ag Bullet finished a neck in front of John The Beer Man for the runner-up spot with New York-bred stakes winner Twenty Six Black fourth.
The winning time wasn’t far off Cogburn’s record :59.80 set winning the 2024 Jaipur, also run at Saratoga during the first Belmont Stakes Racing Festival in upstate New York.
“What do you say but, ‘Wow,’ ” Fawkes said. “He’s just a really neat horse. Anything you ask him to do, he does. I was happy with him coming in. He was a little nervous in the paddock which I figured might have been first time back in the States jitters, but I wasn’t too worried. Irad said that when he broke, the race was over. He was on the bridle and ready to roll.”
Bred in Florida, Reef Runner is a full brother to stakes winner Big Paradise and winner Living In Paradise and a half-brother to the placed Street Sense filly Paradise Street. The Lieblongs purchased Reef Runner’s dam, the Blame mare Paradise Bay, for $350,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September sale. A half-sister to multiple Grade 1 winner and $1,123,890-earner Paradise Woods, Paradise Bay won once in four starts for the Lieblongs before joining their broodmare band.
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