Tapiture breaks maiden in Kentucky Jockey Club

Tapiture earned his first career victory in the Ky Jockey Club (Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography)

Ron Winchell’s Kentucky homebred Tapiture put away the field by 4 1/4 lengths
to break his maiden in Saturday’s Grade 2, $175,200

Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs. The Steve Asmussen charge
grabbed the public’s attention while racking up 10 points in the “Road to the
Kentucky Derby” race and will head to Fair Grounds for his three-year-old
campaign.

“He goes to the Fair Grounds from here,” Asmussen said when asked if he would
head to Fair Grounds or California next.

“We had planned on running him in a maiden race at the beginning of the meet
as a prep for this,” the trainer added. “It didn’t go as planned, but he came out
of it good, trained really well and just stayed the course. It’s awfully fun to
have another nice homebred for the Winchells.”

Tapiture raced up close from the start as 19-1 longshot Laddie Boy led the
field through an opening quarter in :24 1/5. Tapiture made his way into second,
while the leader posted a half-mile in :47 3/5.

“It was pretty crowded going into the first turn,” Asmussen stated. “I really
liked the way he handled and got good position. Ricardo (Santana Jr.) rode him
really well.”

The son of Tapit wore down that rival to put up three-quarters of a length in
1:11 4/5 as he emerged with the lead turning for home. Eventual third-place
finisher Awesome Sky made a sweeping move around the far turn but couldn’t
muster anymore energy as he and the rest of the field could only watch Tapiture
extend his lead in the stretch. The two-year-old colt drew away under steady
urging to cover 1 1/16 miles in 1:43 2/5 over
the fast main track. 

Tapiture easily drew off in the Churchill Downs lane (Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography)

“I just think this colt is continuing to improve,” said Chuck Peery, trainer
of runner-up Laddie Boy. “At the quarter-pole he bobbled a bit and I don’t think
he really cared for this track that much. But I couldn’t be prouder of him. I
thought he hung in there after (Tapiture) got by him when a lot of
horses would call it a day. He showed me some real intestinal fortitude today.”

“He’s still in the learning process,” said Shaun Bridgmohan, jockey of
Awesome Sky. “He’s a great big horse that has a bright future ahead of him and
he’s still learning a lot. I think it was a positive step forward today meeting
winners. He’s still a maiden but I think he’s got a whole lot of improving to do
and he’s going to be OK.”

Tapiture went off as the 3-1 second choice after 6-5 morning-line favorite
Almost Famous was scratched the morning of the race. Tapiture returned $8.60 to
his backers for the win and now sports a career mark of 4-1-1-2, $140,838.

“He popped a ‘stone gravel’ — a stone bruise,” said Pat Byrne, trainer of
Almost Famous. “It popped out of his coronet band yesterday. He’s sound on it
and we were able to treat it topically. He was fine this morning. The state vet
was here and she thought he was sound. But I know he’s not quite 100 percent,
and as the day has gone on some infection has been building up in the foot. It’s
the left-hind foot, and on the outside of the coronet band the abscess has
broken, but the abscess is still there.