OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- Showing speed and stamina his trainer wasn’t quite sure he had, Freddy Flintshire became a Grade 1 winner Thursday at Aqueduct, taking the $150,000 Lonesome Glory Steeplechase by one length over favored L’Imperator.
Hidden Path finished third and was followed by Evie’s Prince and Going Country. Westerland and Welshman scratched from the seven-horse field.
The victory gave trainer Keri Brion her second consecutive Grade 1 steeplechase victory on this circuit, having also captured the Jonathan Sheppard at Saratoga last month with Jimmy P. Brion had run both Jimmy P and Freddy Flintshire in the Grade 1 Beverly Steinman at Aqueduct in June, when they finished fourth and sixth, respectively.
In hindsight, Brion said, neither was fit enough to perform well in the Steinman that day.
“Coming into the summer, we had the plan to split them up and try to get both of them a Grade 1 win and we did that,” Brion said. “For once, mission accomplished.”
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Brion said she wasn’t entirely confident in Freddy Flintshire’s ability to handle the 2 1/2 miles of the Lonesome Glory, run over 10 fences. She then became worried about the glacial pace in the race as Evie’s Prince and Going Country, the latter also trained by Brion, were going slow on the front end while Freddy Flintshire under Stephen Mulqueen, tracked from third.
After final fence, there is a half-mile flat run to the wire. Approaching the top of the stretch, the field was basically all together, though Mulqueen did a masterful job of keeping L’Imperator, the 8-5 favorite under Gerard Galligan, boxed in. When Mulqueen got Freddy Flintshire going, he sprinted to the lead and held L’Imperator, the 158-pound highweight, at bay late.
“There was a little bit of a question mark about 2 1/2 miles,” Brion said. “He was a maiden on the flat. L’Imperator has proper flat form, even Hidden Path has proper flat form. When they went slow, knowing it was going to be a sprint, I don’t think my horse is extremely fast, just more experienced probably.”
Mulqueen was confident in Freddy Flintshire’s ability to sprint home as long as he got a clear trip.
“I didn’t want to try and be clever and put him amongst horses,” Mulqueen said. “I wanted a clean run, so I angled out and just sling-shotted him off the bend.”
Freddy Flintshire, a 6-year-old gelding by Flintshire owned by Upland Flats Racing,, covered the 2 1/2 miles in 4:45.31 and returned $10.
L’Imperator was boxed in by Freddy Flintshire in upper stretch in addition to carrying topweight, conceding the winner four pounds and 18 pounds to Hidden Path.
“Pace makes the race, that’s the oldest saying in the game,” Arch Kingsley, trainer of L’Imperator, said. “We needed more of it today and we needed things to open up a little bit at the head of the stretch. I’ve certainly been the beneficiary of it enough times, so I’m not able to cry about it now. Congrats to the winner, that’s a legitimate horse.”
NSA revokes sanction of 2024 International Gold Cup
Brion mentioned the Grade 1 International Gold Cup on Oct. 26 at Great Meadow in Virginia as a possible next start for Freddy Flintshire. That race is no longer an option.
About 20 minutes after the Lonesome Glory was run, the National Steeplechase Association put out a press release saying that it has revoked the sanction for the 2024 International Gold Cup at Great Meadow because it deemed the Great Meadow race course “in disrepair and unsafe.”
Both the International Gold Cup and the Virginia Gold Cup, run in the spring, are held by the Virginia Gold Cup Association. The VGCA rents the course from Great Meadow for $300,000 annually and the contract calls for Great Meadow to maintain the course in top condition and according to NSA standards, according to the press release.
“The NSA has been monitoring the conditions of Great Meadow for years now and the board of the NSA took action that is in keeping with the mandate to provide safe racing conditions for their constituents,” Al Griffin, co-chairman of the VGCA, said in a release.
Griffin is also the president of the NSA but recused himself during that board’s deliberations of the Great Meadow situation.
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