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Tom Law Four starts, four wins. Next comes Saratoga.
Trainer Ben Perkins Jr. shipped Amsterdam Stakes contender Rainbow Heir from Monmouth Park Thursday evening and the streaking 3-year-old immediately settled into the routine of life at the Spa.
The defending Horse of the Year was quiet as he stepped from his stall Saturday morning at Saratoga. With a subdued air about him, he calmly snorted and stepped from straw to dirt. He allowed his hooves to be picked, shook his head with ears up, then nodded up and down a few times.
“Twenty-four hours,” said a man sitting on a bucket just outside stall five in the Saratoga stakes barn Friday morning, eyebrows slightly raised.
Eric Guillot walks a fine line with the talented and formerly erratic Moreno, who takes on a few of the big names from this year’s spring classics in today’s $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga.
Kiaran McLaughlin deserved to be happy and satisfied with this one. He waited for a little while in the winner’s circle, hoping that Transparent’s number would stay up and he’d walk out of there with a trophy in his hand and a stakes win for a colt he’s been high on for a while and especially in the days leading up to Friday’s $100,000 Curlin Stakes
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum bought five colts by Bernardini through his primary agent John Ferguson a little less than two years ago at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings. Two of them, bought for nearly the same price about an hour apart, will start in today’s $100,000 Curlin Stakes as a coupled entry in a field of eight in the restricted race for 3-year-olds.
Kitten’s Dumplings was leaning all over Joe Sharp in the paddock and on the walk to the racetrack. By the time the young assistant trainer and groom found a spot in the clubhouse to watch Wednesday’s Lake George Stakes his once pressed and dapper tan suit coat was sopped in spots with the filly’s sweat.
Shug McGaughey didn’t use the same glowing adjectives he uncharacteristically let rip during the Triple Crown season, but he was thrilled. Charlie LoPresti came out on the wrong end of a photo, yet gave off a sense of relief. And back home in Maryland, Graham Motion deserved to feel satisfied.
The only way you were a happy fella after Sunday’s fifth race was if you bet on Happy Fella. That was the story after the 3-year-old Northern Afleet gelding surprised even his trainer by legging out a dramatic victory under Jose Espinoza at 28-1.
