Clarence Scharbauer Jr.’s homebred Fiftyshadesofgold exited
her impressive eight-length victory in Saturday night’s Debutante Stakes on the
Downs After Dark program at Churchill Downs in good order,
according to trainer Bret Calhoun.
“Everything is good today,” Calhoun said. “She’s doing
well.”
The Debutante, first staged in 1895 and one of Churchill’s most storied races, was a special victory for
jockey Corey Lanerie, whose uncle Steve
Estilette unexpectedly passed away Friday while visiting the family in
Louisville, Kentucky, for two weeks from his home in Louisiana. He was 53.
“My
uncle Steve would have kicked me in the butt if I wouldn’t have ridden. There’s
nothing we can do and life goes on. He would want us to be happy and to live and
joke and remember the good memories,” Lanerie said. “I dedicated tonight to
him and I felt like I had an angel on my back the last eighth of a mile.”
It was the first Churchill Downs stakes victory for the Scharbauer family’s familiar blue and white diamond silks since Clarence Scharbauer
Jr.’s late wife,
Dorothy, and daughter Pam won the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Classic with ’87 Kentucky
Derby winner Alysheba. Keeping it in the family even more, Fiftyshadesofgold’s
third dam is Grade 2 queen Alysbelle, who is a full sister to Alysheba.
“I thought it was a monster effort,”
Calhoun said after the race. “It was very, very
impressive. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She beat those horses pretty
handily and I know there were some nice horses in there. To go what I thought
was too fast and then keep running was very impressive.”
The conditioner added no plans have been made for Fiftyshadesofgold’s next start.
However, he did say he plans on keeping the My Golden Song filly apart from stablemate Bahnah.
That impressive two-year-old Elusive Quality miss took her maiden debut under
the Twin Spires on June 6 by six lengths.
“We don’t have any plans for Fiftyshadesofgold at this
point,” Calhoun said. “We’ll try to get a plan together in the next week or so,
but I don’t even know what’s out there outside of the race at Saratoga, which is
where Bahnah is going. Right now, I don’t think I’d want to run them both
there.”
Bahnah is currently slated for the Grade 3, $150,000 Schuylerville at
Saratoga on July 19.
“They’re two really nice fillies,” Calhoun noted. “I would definitely like to keep them
apart, but there’s different ownership so that could change things.”
Calhoun stated that Fiftyshadesofgold likely would remain at
Churchill Downs and train up to her next race at the Louisville track.
Later on the Downs After Dark card, Joseph W. Sutton’s Burban posted a gate-to-wire victory in the $65,111 Roxelana with jockey Shaun
Bridgmohan in the irons. The Eddie Kenneally-trained five-year-old was 3 1/4
lengths clear of 3-2 favorite Apropos on the wire while stopping
the clock in 1:09 2/5 for six furlongs on the fast Churchill Downs dirt.
Burban
recorded her second stakes win after taking the Break Through in early April,
and the dark bay daughter of Speightstown followed that up with a runner-up effort in the Humana Distaff
and a fourth-placing in the Winning Colors. Saturday’s score improved her resume
to read 5-2-0 from nine starts with $277,736 in lifetime earnings.
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