Wise Dan leads nominations for Woodford Reserve
Two-time Horse of the Year and defending winner Wise Dan is the brightest
name on an international roster of 90 early nominations to the 28th running of
the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on the Kentucky Derby Day undercard on May 3 at Churchill Downs.
The 1 1/8-mile contest for
four-year-olds and up on the Matt Winn Turf Course is traditionally run immediately
prior to the running of the Kentucky Derby. It has
become one of the most important grass races in the United States since Eclipse
Award turf champion Manila won its inaugural running in 1987.
The Woodford Reserve Turf Classic is
part of a spectacular Derby Day racing card that features three Grade 1 races
topped by the 140th running of the Kentucky Derby. Total purses for the six
stakes races total $3.75 million.
Owned and bred by Mort Fink and trained by Charlie LoPresti, Wise Dan sailed to
a 4 3/4-length victory over yielding turf in the 2013 Woodford Reserve Turf
Classic, an early highlight in a seven-race campaign that earned the son of
Wiseman’s Ferry a second consecutive Eclipse Award that honored him as Horse of
the Year. Wise Dan was also honored as America’s best turf horse and top older
horse.
Wise Dan completed the year a perfect six-for-six in stakes events on grass
and concluded the season with his second straight triumph in the Breeders’ Cup
Mile at Santa Anita. His only loss was a runner-up finish in the Shadwell Mile at Keeneland, a race moved from the Lexington, Kentucky,
track’s grass to Polytrack because of heavy rain.
The seven-year-old gelding’s record over the past two years is 11-2-0 in 13 races.
As he enters a planned 2014 campaign, Wise Dan’s career record stands at 19-2-0
in 27 races with earnings of $6,293,610.
Wise Dan is one of four Woodford Reserve nominees trained by Lopresti. Others
made eligible for the race include Fink’s Successful Dan, Wise Dan’s eight-year-old
half-brother who won Keeneland’s Ben Ali in 2013; Elisabeth Alexander’s Set the
Sail, runner-up in Churchill Downs’ River City Handicap;
and Gainesway Stable’s homebred Villandry.
Wise Dan is one of two winners of the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic included on
this year’s list of nominees. Priscilla Vaccarezza’s Little Mike won its 2012
running during a campaign for trainer Dale Romans in which he also won the
Breeders’ Cup Turf and the Arlington Million. The seven-year-old son
of Spanish Step, now trained by Carlo Vaccarezza, won last year’s Joe Hirsch
Turf Classic Invitational, his only victory in seven 2013 races. Little Mike will enter
2014 with a career record of 28-13-2-1 with earnings of $3,483,012.
The roster of Woodford Reserve Turf Classic nominees also includes a
pair of stars from last year’s division of three-year-old stars in Willis D.
Horton’s Will Take Charge and Dogwood Stable’s Palace Malice. Will Take Charge
mounted a second-half rally for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas that
included a near-miss runner-up finish to Mucho Macho Man in the Breeders’ Cup
Classic at Santa Anita and a season-ending triumph in Churchill Downs’
Clark Handicap that clinched the Eclipse
Award for champion three-year-old male. Palace Malice, trained by Todd Pletcher, won the
Belmont Stakes, defeating Kentucky Derby champ Orb and Preakness winner Oxbow in the final jewel of the Triple Crown. Neither horse has run
on grass.
Trainer Mike Maker, based at Churchill Downs’ Trackside Training Center, led
all trainers with nine Woodford Reserve nominees. The Maker contingent is headed
by Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Secretariat winner Admiral Kitten and Scarlet Stable’s
King David, winner of the 2012 Jamaica at Belmont Park. Hall of
Fame trainer Bill Mott and six-time Eclipse Award winner Pletcher each nominated
six horses to the Woodford Reserve, while Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey made six
of his horses eligible to compete in the race.
Five of Maker’s nominees are owned by the Ramseys, who earned Eclipse Award
honors in 2013 as the top owners and breeders in the United States. The
Nicholasville, Kentucky,
couple nominated seven horses overall, with their brightest stars being Real
Solution, the Chad Brown-trained winner of the 2013 Arlington Million, and
Admiral Kitten. Juddmonte Farms nominated four horses, all trained by Mott.
Other early nominees include Live Oak Plantation’s Za Approval, runner-up to
Wise Dan in the Breeders’ Cup Mile for trainer Christophe Clement; Crossed
Sabres Farm’s Lochte, a 39-1 longsot winner of the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap; the Neil Drysdale-trained duo of Pandora
Stud’s Hollywood Turf Cup
winner Lucayan and Winning Prize, winner of the Arcadia; Godolphin’s Alpha,
winner of the 2013 Woodward and a dead-heat winner of the 2012 Travers; the Mott-trained Amira’s Prince,
winner of the 2013 Mervin Muniz Handicap at Fair Grounds and Mac Diarmida at Gulfstream Park; Man
o’War winner Boisterous, now trained by Pletcher; Daddy Nose Best, winner of the
Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap at Fair Grounds; Michael Bruder’s Guys Reward,
winner of the 2012 Firecracker at Churchill Downs and the recent Tampa Bay
Stakes for Romans; Phipps Stable’s Red Smith winner Imagining and Canadian Turf winner Reload; Maribel Rulas’
Potomac River, upset winner of the 2013 River City at Churchill Downs and the
recent Fair Grounds Handicap; Calumet Farm’s three-time graded stakes
winner Optimizer; Wertheimer and Frere’s Citation winner Silentio; Mark
Bacon and Dana Wells’ Silver Max, who handed Wise Dan his only defeat of 2013 in
the Shadwell Mile over Polytrack at Keeneland and also won Saratoga’s Bernard
Baruch on turf; Lael Stable and All In Stables’ Washington Park Handicap winner Willcox Inn and Hronis Racing’s Vagabond Shoes,
winner of the recent San Marcos for trainer John Sadler.
Woodford Reserve Turf Classic nominees based outside of the United States
include Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien’s duo of Afonso
de Sousa and Cristoforo Colombo, both owned by Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and
Susan Magnier; the Mikel Delzangles-trained duo of Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa
al Thani’s Flotilla and Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al Thani’s Mshawish; and
the Jeremy Noseda-trained Grandeur. Sam-Son Farm’s Up With the Birds, winner of
the 2013 Jamaica at Belmont Park and the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine in his
homeland, just returned to the worktab at his winter quarters at Fair Grounds.
A late nomination phase for the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic is now underway.
Those nominations must be accompanied by a $1,000 fee and must be submitted
before the late nomination deadline of 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on April 9.
Supplemental nominations to the race can be made at the time of entry
on April 30, and each requires the payment of a $15,000 fee. The
Woodford Reserve Turf Classic is limited to 14 starters, with two also-eligible
entrants.
Along with the victory by reigning turf champion Manila in the first Woodford
Reserve Turf Classic in 1987 and last year’s triumph by Horse of the Year and
multiple Eclipse Award winner Wise Dan, other American turf champions that have
competed in the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic include Paradise Creek, winner of
the Turf Classic during his 1994 championship campaign, and 1992 Eclipse Award
turf champion Sky Classic, runner-up to Cudas in that year’s Turf Classic
renewal.
Should Wise Dan compete in the 2014 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, he would
attempt to become only the second two-time winner of the race. Einstein,
who took the 2008 and 2009 renewals of the race, is its only two-time winner.
The versatile Brazilian-bred son of 1985 Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck was
a finalist for the Eclipse Award for top older male in each of those years and
one of three finalists for turf champion in 2008.
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