Giving specialists their due, By Megan Grant
May 20, 2007
When it was announced earlier this year that three new $1-million races were being added to the Breeders’ Cup World Championship, it seemed that every niche had been filled. There now exists a Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile for 3-year-olds and up, a Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint for fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, and a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, a one-mile event open to 2-year-old males and females. However, there was one palpable omission: the lack of a turf sprint.
North American sprinters have long gone unrewarded, picking up scant paychecks in ungraded stakes and the occasional Grade 3 at upper echelon tracks such as Santa Anita and Keeneland. Several talented individuals have dominated the “division” in recent years.
In 1999, Texas Glitter grabbed headlines at the beginning of the Gulfstream meet with a five-length victory in the Spectacular Bid S. (G3) on the main track. After a string disappointing efforts thereafter he was tried on grass and suddenly found his old form. There he would go on to win seven stakes (two graded) and set three course records at Laurel, Gulfstream, and Calder.
Like Texas Glitter, Morluc debuted and won on dirt in an abbreviated juvenile campaign. Once switched to the lawn he too would find his best stride, winning five stakes (just one graded) in his 40-race career and lowering course records at Churchill Downs, Kentucky Downs, and Gulfstream. He defeated Texas Glitter the only time they met, in Keeneland’s Nureyev Stakes (now the Woodford) when running 5-1/2 furlongs in 1:02.22; Texas Glitter was an uncharacteristic fourth.
Perhaps Morluc’s two best efforts came in defeat halfway around the world to the Aussie juggernaut Falvelon in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint (now a grade 1). The two battled in 2000 with Falvelon getting the better of Morluc by a narrow head victory. Morluc was back the following year and narrowed the margin to a heartbreaking nose. Falvelon would go on to be named champion sprinter in his homeland for the second consecutive time.
Most trainers are reluctant to ship their horses out of town –let alone out of the country—but the Hong Kong Sprint purse of approximately $775,000 far exceeds anything offered on North American soil for turf sprinters.
Fast Parade, once a Kentucky Derby hopeful, seemed to have found his forte when defeating older horses soundly in Canada’s Grade 2 Nearctic Stakes at six furlongs over the turf. But with a lack of purse money and grass sprints on the calendar, his connections tried stretching him out unsuccessfully in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita, where he faded to tenth after setting the pace.
“If he can get the mile, it changes everything,” trainer Peter Miller explained before the race. “… It opens up a lot of races at a mile.”
But why not have a series of graded stakes for the continent’s best sprinters? It’s a no-brainer, particularly for a country like the United States where breeders are keen on speed and condition books are inundated with six-furlong races; and the larger fields of turf races are especially attractive to bettors. Cut the money from main track races that are drawing continually small fields –like last week’s Grade 3 National Jockey Club Stakes—and bulk up the purses of turf sprints, which are run regularly for the measly sums (in comparison with stakes race run on dirt) of $40,000 and $50,000. Just about every marquee international racing meet has a turf sprint, from Royal Ascot to Sha Tin, and a grade 1 turf sprint with an ample purse could draw international participation from countries as Japan and Australia. If placed on the racing calendar sagaciously, it might even be added to the competitive and incentive-based Global Sprint Challenge.
Racing officials should take a page from Hollywood Park and its globally popular American Oaks, which has garnered runners from England, France, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and attained grade 1 status since its inception just five years ago. Creating one or several turf sprints would add a uniqueness to American racing that has not existed for some time.
It’s time racing gave horses specializing in this niche their due.
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