The morning-line favorite, World Record, never has won a stakes race against older rivals. Second-choice Nakatomi hasn’t won a race of any kind in 15 months. The field’s only graded stakes winners this year, Durante and Watchatalkinabout, sit, respectively, at 15-1 and 6-1 on the line. A grand total of just six were entered, and you’d say Friday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Phoenix Stakes at Keeneland came up soft – but for the fact the entire North American dirt-sprint division, this year and last, came up soft.
The six-furlong Phoenix is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, the race winner earning automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. You can bet winning connections will take their chance. The early BC Sprint favorite, Bentornato, has a single graded win, the Grade 2 Gallant Bob for 3-year-olds, on his résumé. Second-choice Patch Adams never has met older horses; third-choice Nysos is more miler than sprinter.
Four-year-old World Record crushed foes in the Grade 2 Amsterdam for 3-year-olds two summers ago, to date a stark outlier to his general form. He shipped to Del Mar for a mushy renewal of the Grade 1 Bing Crosby, bumped slightly at the break, got caught in a somewhat tight spot between horses around the second part of the far turn and into the homestretch, and then failed to sufficiently quicken, finishing third as the tepid favorite.
“If you watch the head-on, he had to wait a little bit,” trainer Rodolphe Brisset said. “I thought he ran a pretty good race. He does need things to go his way a little bit.”
Connections also entered World Record on Saturday in the Woodford, a turf sprint, but Brisset said a grass debut would wait. If World Record wins Friday or runs especially well, it’s on to the BC Sprint. If not, there’s a turf sprint in New York for him this fall. Flavien Prat rides World Record, who can show speed, but, Brisset said, doesn’t need to lead.
He won’t lead, either, not with Skelly entered. Skelly does need the lead and nearly always gets it. He also needs an extension blinker to keep him from getting out on the turn and has needed the great state of Arkansas to show his best. At Oaklawn Park, Skelly has won 9 of 12; elsewhere, he’s 3 for 11. Skelly has, however, never raced at Keeneland, a track that during opening week of the 2024 fall meet strongly favored early leaders.
Nakatomi has gone 6-3-2-0 at Keeneland, his home track, his pair of runner-up finishes in the last two editions of the Phoenix. In 2023, Nakatomi just failed to run down victorious Hoist the Gold. Last year, he ran into Federal Judge, who scorched off to a clear early advantage and never looked back.
“He was a little compromised last year,” said Keeneland-based Wesley Ward. “It was just such a speed-biased track.”
Ward rues the brutal beat Nakatomi took in April, when he was beaten a neck by a huge longshot in the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen. Nakatomi faced divisional leader Book’em Danno in a pair of Saratoga starts, failing to distinguish himself in either. Workout watchers, however, should not be discouraged by tepid-looking recent Keeneland drills done in company with a lesser horse, Monterey Bay.
“That’s all about the rider on his back, Julio Garcia. I always put him on the better horse. He’s got the greatest hands for a rider I’ve ever seen. Those hands get the horse to fall asleep. He gets them ever so relaxed, they loom right up – the horse knows how much better he is than the workmate, but he never passes, so the workmate doesn’t know that. It’s good for both horses,” Ward said.
Watchatalkinabout won the Grade 3 John Nerud by a head in May. He slop-flopped facing New York-bred stakes rivals, then took a pace-casualty defeat while running a fast figure in a Saratoga allowance race.
“Numbers-wise, he’s ready to go. This is his home track, and he’s never run here, so I’m anxious to get him in a race on it,” Ward said.
Durante upset World Record in a very strangely run Aristides in June at Churchill. Seven-year-old Here Mi Song seemed washed up early in the year before bouncing back into form. He generally prefers seven furlongs to six – but still can’t be counted out in this Phoenix.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.