6/19/15
Last updated: 6/18/15 3:02 PM
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Page McKenney will go for his first graded score in the Cornhusker
(Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club) |
Maryland-based Page McKenney (Eavesdropper) is scheduled to hit the road
following a nice second in the May 15 Pimlico Special (G3) on Black-Eyed Susan
Day. The Grade 2-placed multiple stakes winner is headed to Prairie Meadows and
the $300,000 Cornhusker H. (G3) on June 27.
Page McKenney, claimed
for $16,000 two years ago by his current owners and trainer Mary Eppler, came
out of the Pimlico Special fine with the exception of a cut on the back of his left ankle,
according to Eppler. The five-year-old gelding previously finished third in the April 18
Charles Town Classic (G2).
“He hit it coming out of the gate at Charles
Town but all he did was knock the hair off,” she explained. “He must have hit it
again in the Pimlico Special. When he came back it was bleeding. Back at Parx he
stumbled leaving the gate and hit himself in front, and those are the only three
times he’s really done that.”
Eppler said the ankle has fully healed and she’s looking forward to the
Cornhusker.
“I wish I had more like
him,” the trainer replied when asked about Page McKenney’s performance this
year, which includes victories at Laurel in the Harrison Johnson Memorial and
John B. Campbell H.
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“He just has such a huge heart,” she added. “He
doesn’t care who he runs against. I was looking at the field for the Pimlico
Special and those horses were huge, and then there’s little Page. He doesn’t
care, he just tries.
“And he’s a fun horse to be around because he’s no trouble.
He’s easy to train and I think he just really loves being at the racetrack. He’s
in the first stall at the barn and he can see the racetrack. He just stands in
the front of his stall and watches the horses train. He just loves the
atmosphere.”
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