Rainbow Heir aiming to rise in Phoenix, punch ticket to BC Sprint

Rainbow Heir aiming to rise in Phoenix, punch ticket to BC
Sprint

Rainbow Heir won’t mind an off track if there’s rain Friday (Aubrey Therkelsen/Equi-Photo) Bred in New Jersey and based at Monmouth Park, the Grade 3-winning sprinter Rainbow Heir arrived at Keeneland last Friday morning to prepare for his next start in the Grade 3, $200,000 Phoenix on opening day this Friday. The four-year-old Wildcat Heir colt, a homebred racing for Everett Novak’s New Farm, is trained by Ben Perkins Jr., whose 81-year-old father, Ben Perkins Sr., has been at Keeneland to oversee the colt’s preparations. Perkins, a lifelong horseman, trained Rainbow Heir’s paternal grandsire, Forest Wildcat, to win the Phoenix in 1996. His son has four Keeneland stakes wins, including the 2007 Thoroughbred Club of America with the Forest Wildcat filly and another New Farm homebred, Wild Gams. Perkins said Rainbow Heir realized he was somewhere different when he saw Keeneland’s main track for the first time. “This track has a little bit of a tint to it, a reddish tint, and boy, he just looked at it (and seemed to say), ‘This don’t look like Monmouth Park,'” Perkins said. “But then he walked on it, and he was fine.” On Monday, Rainbow Heir worked three furlongs in :36 with exercise rider Sabrino Ramirez aboard.

“We didn’t want to go quite that fast, but he’s a fast horse,” Perkins said.

Rainbow Heir has won seven of 11 races, including the 2013 Jersey Shore at
Monmouth, and has earned $315,210. He is coming off three consecutive wins at
Monmouth, including a 12 1/2-length victory over a sloppy track on September 6
in the six-furlong New Jersey Breeders Handicap.

Now the colt is a win away from competing in the $1.5 million
Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

“That’s one of the reasons we brought him here,” Perkins said. “If you win,
you’re in.”

Perkins said Angel Serpa, who rode Rainbow Heir in his last three races,
would be aboard the colt for the Phoenix. Entries for the race will be taken
Tuesday.

In other Keeneland news:

Ria Antonia, winless since being awarded last year’s BC Juvenile Fillies, could attempt the Spinster (Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club) The 2014 Fall Meet, which begins its 17-day run Friday, marks the first season of a new dirt surface on Keeneland’s 1 1/16-mile main track. The track was structurally reconfigured in the summer of 2006 to widen the turns and lengthen the stretch. As a result, dirt track records prior to the 2006 Fall Meet are not comparable to times set on the new dirt surface, and a new set of track records will be established. Opening weekend of the Fall Meet features nine graded stakes, including seven Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” races. The Fall Stars microsite allows fans to track workouts, probable fields, official entries and watch video interviews with horsemen. The site will continue to track Keeneland’s Breeders’ Cup-bound horses through the event on October 31 and November 1 at Santa Anita. Opening day features the Grade 1 Alcibiades, a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Jack Hendricks of nearby Danville, the co-owner of Alcibiades hopeful Naval Command, was bursting with pride as he looked in on three of his favorite horses at the stakes barn Monday morning at Keeneland.

“It has been a dream of mine after 45 years in the game to win a stake at
Keeneland,” said Hendricks, who races Naval Command in partnership with Roger
Justice of Paris, Kentucky, and Pinnacle Racing Stable. “I always wanted to run
in a graded stake here, but only if we had a chance. I think she will make a
good showing.”

Trained by Bill Kaplan, Naval Command has won three of her four starts and
enters the Alcibiades off a victory in the Happy Ticket over the turf at
Louisiana Downs on September 6.

“I think she is good on either surface, but I think she may be better on
dirt,” Hendricks said of the daughter of Midshipman. “Bill is the one who makes
the decisions, but the Alcibiades was one of our goals when she started showing
what she could do.”

In addition to Naval Command, Hendricks and Justice own East Hall and
Hendricks and Pinnacle are partners in Holiday Magic, the other two members of
the Kaplan-trained trio in the Keeneland stakes barn. East Hall is slated to run
in the Indiana Derby on Saturday and Holiday Magic is to start in the Indiana
Oaks.

“It is going to be a busy weekend for us,” said Kaplan, who is flying from
Florida to Lexington Friday morning along with jockey Juan Leyva. “We will ship
the two horses up to Indiana the day of the race and then come back to Keeneland
and then on Sunday we are running six at Gulfstream.”

Loooch Racing Stable and Christopher Dunn’s Ria Antonia, winner of the 2013
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, worked a half-mile in :48 before the Monday
morning renovation break. Ria Antonia is nominated to Sunday’s Grade 1
Spinster.

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