STICKNEY, Ill. – There’s a chance of rain this weekend at Hawthorne Racecourse. Nonetheless, circumstances won’t be anything like the last time California-based trainer Neil Drysdale ran a horse here.
In 2013, Drysdale won the Hawthorne Derby with a horse named Kid Dreams. How wet was the grass course that day? It took Kid Dreams 2:01.49 to cover 1 1/8 miles.
Eleven years later, Drysdale has one of the favorites for Sunday’s $150,000 Carey Memorial Handicap, a one-mile grass race. Nineeleventurbo, incongruously, is pegged as the 3-1 morning-line favorite while assigned just 120 pounds, five fewer than starting highweights He’spuregold and Tut’s Revenge.
While Drysdale bases in California, 7-year-old Nineeleventurbo spent most of this summer on the road. On May 26, he shook off rust making his seasonal debut in a Santa Anita turf sprint, after which Drysdale sent the gelding to Colonial Downs, where he ran into the high-level middle-distance turf horse Integration in the Million Preview Stakes, finishing a distant second. From there, Nineeleventurbo went on to Kentucky Downs, where a tactical change – Florent Geroux put him on the lead – nearly produced an upset in the $500,000 Tapit Stakes.
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Nineeleventurbo’s lone timed workout for the Carey came Sept. 23 at Belmont Park. When the gelding wakes up Sunday morning, he’ll be at this fifth racecourse in four months.
Geroux gives way to another French jockey, Vincent Cheminaud, who should, despite the recent display of speed, have Nineelventurbo settled into a stalking position.
Drysdale’s trio of local starters, the first in 2002, are three more Hawthorne runners than trainer Kelly Breen has sent out. He’spuregold, a New Jersey-bred, will be the first, and Breen has the gelding well spotted. After finishing third behind the Drysdale-trained St Anthony in the Oceanport at Monmouth, He’spuregold won the Sept. 2 Red Bank there, St Anthony a tepid fifth. Breen named Paco Lopez to ride Sunday, and Lopez from a rail draw might find his way into the pocket behind likely pacesetters Katie M’Lady and Tuts Revenge.
Katie M’Lady somehow carries more weight, 121 pounds, than Nineeleventurbo despite being a female facing males and a 6-year-old who has made nine of her 15 starts in Illinois-bred competition. Still, don’t count her out. If Katie M’Lady can scoot clear of Tut’s Revenge, regular rider Julio Felix can dictate tempo over a course where the mare has gone 4-3-0 from seven starts. Her 7 1/2-length pasting of the graded stakes-class Oeuvre here in June suggests Katie M’Lady could lead a long way.
She’s not the only Hawthorne-loving Illinois-bred entered, though Another Mystery brings an entirely different deep-closing style to Sunday’s contest. With a record of 4-2-0 from six Hawthorne turf outings, Another Mystery no doubt goes well over the course, but he better suits longer races and will struggle to get up at a distance this short in an open-company stakes with depth.
That depth? Tut’s Revenge can win, as can Canterbury shipper Tonka Warrior, Churchill shipper Stitched, and the Brendan Walsh-trained Evan Harlan, though the latter drew poorly in post 11.
Nineeleventurbo just went evenly over soft ground two starts ago at Colonial Downs. The course Sunday, after a generally parched September, won’t be nearly as soft as for the 2013 Hawthorne Derby. Drysdale, more than a decade later, can win his second race in a row at Hawthorne.
Jean Elizabeth Handicap
The 5-year-old mare Oeuvre won eight straight Hawthorne sprints after Chris Block began training her in 2022. When that streak ended July 28 with a third-place finish in a turf sprint, the kind of race that brings out Oeuvre’s best, the mare clearly was asking for a freshening. She got it, and two months later has found a sweet spot, the Jean Elizabeth Handicap, to notch her 17th win from 31 starts.
This 6 1/2-furlong dirt contest for Illinois-bred fillies and mares, however, is a true handicap, as Oeuvre carries 129 pounds, giving her four opponents between 12 and 14 pounds. An in-form Oeuvre will overcome the impost. In June, she carried 128 pounds to a four-length score in a similar spot, giving seven pounds to runner-up Purr Sea, a horse several cuts above the Sunday competition.
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