LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Happy Birthday, Brian Lynch!
Trainer Brian Lynch celebrated his 62nd birthday Friday at Churchill Downs in high style, winning a pair of graded stakes on the Kentucky Oaks undercard. He started with Moon Spun taking the Grade 2 Unbridled Sidney before coming back nearly three hours later to put the icing on his birthday cake by capturing the Grade 1 La Troienne with Shred the Gnar.
Shred the Gnar entered the 1 1/16-mile La Troienne off an uncharacteristically poor effort in her 4-year-old debut when finishing a distant sixth in the Grade 3 Royal Delta Stakes at Gulfstream Park. But despite that poor showing, Lynch was confident his filly would rebound with a much-improved performance on Friday.
“She was a big disappointment at Gulfstream, but I never gave up on her,” said Lynch, who won his first Grade 1 stakes since Oscar Performance captured the Woodbine Mile nearly eight years earlier. “We got her back here, watched her train well over this track, and kind of watched the light come back on. She was telling us she was heading in the right direction and she proved that the way she showed up today.”
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With her regular rider Luis Saez back aboard after a one-race hiatus, Shred the Gnar broke alertly and was under a snug hold stalking the modest early pace set by Miss Justify. Shred the Gnar stuck her head in front on the second turn and was kept under a steady drive from the top of the lane to the wire to fend off a stretch-long bid by the 2-1 favorite Fully Subscribed to win by a length.
Fully Subscribed moved in tandem with the winner on the final bend, came four wide to continue her bid into the stretch, lugged in briefly near the sixteenth marker, and was not quite good enough. Bless the Broken saved ground while well placed to the stretch, angled out for the drive, also wandered a bit through midstretch, and finished another 1 1/2 lengths farther back in third.
Shred the Gnar, a daughter of Into Mischief owned by Flying Dutchmen, covered the distance over a fast track in 1:42.24 seconds and returned $8.42 as the second choice in a field of 10 older fillies and mares.
“It certainly was a good way to celebrate a birthday,” Lynch said in the winner’s circle immediately after the race. “And it helps when you’ve got the right horses in the barn and the right clients, all of whom have been patient to let the horses do their thing.”
Although Shred the Gnar had led at every call during her three-race win streak to close out her 3-year-old campaign, Lynch said he was happy with the stalking trip she sat in the La Troienne.
“I thought she might have made the lead, but we’ve worked her a number of times sitting off horses,” Lynch acknowledged. “The fractions were kind enough and travelling the way she was, she gave me a good feeling the whole way.”
The long-range goal for Shred the Gnar will be the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Distaff on Oct. 31 and Lynch said he plans just two more starts for her between now and the Breeders' Cup.
“It’s a wide-open division and I hope she can be a leader there in [October],” said Lynch. “And she certainly got us back on track today.”
Trainer Chad Brown said he was proud of his filly, Fully Subscribed, even in defeat. The multiple graded stakes winner was making her first start since winning the Grade 3 Comely at Aqueduct on Dec. 7.
“Very solid effort,” said Brown. “She was off the winner’s hip the whole way and just a little wider. I’m not making excuses, but it’s tough to give up that difference to a really nice filly like that. It’s tough to beat. But I think my filly getting out to a mile and an eighth with a race under her belt this summer, I feel there are some big races in her.”
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