Ring Weekend highlighted a successful Labor Day for trainer Graham Motion
with a popular win in the Grade 3, $300,000
Saranac
for three-year-olds at
Saratoga.
Motion, who also trained the filly Munirah to a Grade 3 score in the Boiling
Springs at Monmouth Park on Monday, trains Ring Weekend for West Point
Thoroughbreds and St. Elias Stable.
A tracking third behind Smooth Daddy, who set fractions of :23 1/5, :47 1/5
and 1:11 1/5, Ring Weekend advanced to second around the far turn, poked his
head in front of the pacesetter at the eighth pole and drew off to a 2
3/4-length tally as the 3-2 favorite.
Guided by John Velazquez, Ring Weekend returned $5.10 after completing nine
furlongs on a good Mellon turf in 1:46 2/5.
“I thought Johnny rode a great race. I thought we were going to be tough
today,” said Terry Finley of West Point Thoroughbreds.
Smooth Daddy, a 15-1 chance, easily held second by 4 3/4 lengths over Cabo
Cat, who was a neck in front of Bashart. Storm, Wallyanna, and Predicting
rounded out the order of finish. Beyond Smart was scratched as were the
main-track-only entries Life in Shambles and Lunar Rover.
This was the second graded stakes win for Ring Weekend, who garnered Grade 2
honors last March in the Tampa Bay Derby on the dirt. That race came a month
after the chestnut beat maiden foes at Gulfstream Park in his fifth career
start.
Second when heavily favored in the April 5 Calder Derby, Ring Weekend next
ran fifth in the Preakness and then was eased in the Pegasus at Monmouth Park
after showing early speed. He returned to the grass for the $100,000 Sir Cat at
Saratoga on July 18, where he finished second to subsequent Secretariat
runner-up Tourist.
“I thought he ran all right on the dirt — he’s a beautiful-moving horse, but
I thought he was probably a little bit better on the grass,” Finley said. “He
broke his maiden at Gulfstream on the dirt, so we pushed on and ran him in the
Tampa Bay Derby. When you win the Tampa Bay Derby, you’ve got to push on to the
(Kentucky) Derby and the Triple Crown. But (it was) in the back of our minds, we
talked all the time about that.
“I think he’s such a good mover on the turf, I think we’ve found a home, at
least for now. If he gets beat a couple of times, we can always come back to
dirt. He’s a big, sound horse. I know he’s a lot different now than he was in
the beginning of the summer. He’s a bigger, stronger horse and it’s good to have
a three-year-old that can really run at this time of the year.”
Ring Weekend now owns a mark of 11-3-3-2, $555,160.
Bred in Kentucky by Gainesway Thoroughbreds, Ring Weekend was sold for
$310,000 as a Keeneland September yearling. He is a gelded son of Tapit and the
multiple stakes-placed Free the Magic, a daughter of Cryptoclearance who has
also reared the stakes-placed Bamboo.
Free the Magic is herself a half-sister to Group 3 winner Forest Wind,
runner-up in the 1993 Saranac, and the Grade 3-placed stakes winners Three
Generations and Flash of Joy. All three were produced by the French
classic-placed Pompoes. Also descending from this family is Cayaya, a multiple
Group 1 winner in Argentina.
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