LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In popular culture, people go to New York trying to hit the big time. It has gone the opposite direction for Spirit of St Louis.
For the first dozen starts of his career, through the fall of his 4-year-old season, Spirit of St Louis knocked around New York-bred turf rivals. He won eight of his first 10 starts, all statebred contests but for the $150,000 Danger's Hour Stakes, a big fish in a relatively small pond. Turned out Spirit of St Louis had to leave New York to find the spotlight.
Spirit of St Louis earned his first graded stakes victory in January, when he got up to win the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf at Gulfstream. His second came Saturday at Churchill Downs, when Spirit of St Louis and Manny Franco roared home from the back of the field and won a second Grade 1, the Turf Classic.
The Grade 1s don’t matter much, as Spirit of St Louis is a 5-year-gelding. The money, though: Spirit of St Louis picked up a little less than a half-million bucks winning the Pegasus Turf and about $530,000 more in Saturday’s $1 million race. His bankroll now exceeds $1.8 million. No wonder the gelding’s owners – Madaket Stables, Michael Dubb, and Richard Schmemerhorn – paraded jubilantly through light rain and soupy dirt into the winner’s circle.
Trainer Chad Brown was there for the fifth time after the Turf Classic. Franco won his first Turf Classic, regaining the mount on Spirit of St Louis after Tyler Gaffalione was injured in April. Franco and the horse go way back. Franco rode Spirit of St Louis his first two starts and has eight wins and two seconds from their 10 pairings.
“I think he likes me,” Franco said.
Brown came into the Turf Classic with a few ideas about Spirit of St Louis: That his fourth-place finish March 22 as the favorite in the Muniz Memorial at Fair Grounds was best ignored, the product of a messy race; that rain-softened ground would not hinder Spirit of St Louis; and that Spirit of St Louis might struggle to stay nine furlongs on a somewhat testing surface. The two positive thoughts were well founded. The skeptical one was not.
“Some horses when they get older they might lose a little bit of their speed, but they might be able to run a bit farther,” Brown said.
Spirit of St Louis had no trouble with the distance. He hit the line hard.
Franco found himself last going onto the backstretch, owing in part to his outside draw. Up front, Mercante had pressed forward to lead Redistricting, another Brown horse, into the first turn, and was poised to take the lead and control the pace when Gigante and Joel Rosario came zooming up outside him to put several lengths on Mercante. The pace was solid, 23.97 and 47.99 seconds, and Gigante, it turned out, was going too fast.
Not Mercante. A reclamation project who’d missed more than a year of racing after showing promise early in his career. Mercante is trained by Brian Knippenberg, who also manages the Hermitage Farm of owner Carl Pollard. Knippenberg took over Mercante’s training when he returned to the races following his long absence. March 22, Mercante won the Kentucky Cup Classic over Turfway Park’s Tapeta surface. Knippenberg had the horse entered in the listed Opening Verse Stakes earlier this week but went for the big purse – and nearly got it.
Mercante and jockey Joe Ramos switched back outside Gigante around the far turn and regained the lead, but when the field of 10 turned for home, every horse in the race still had a chance. At the furlong grounds, nine of them were lined up across the course, no more than a length separating the bunch. Mercante turned back Redistricting, kept grinding and fought off several others who tried to surge. But he could not quite deal with Spirit of St Louis.
Spirit of St Louis turned for home still with much work to do, pushed wide on the course, trying to get his feet underneath him. He switched leads at the three-sixteenths pole and sparked to life, coming fast on the outside of that equine wall, rushing to the lead in the last 50 yards.
“I made my move, and he was there for me all the way to the wire,” Franco said.
Spirit of St Louis, seventh at the stretch call, won by three-quarters of a length, a blanket finish behind him, Mercante followed by Highway Robber, Gold Phoenix, Running Bee, and Redistricting. Another 1 1/4 lengths back came second choice Integration, then Cameo Performance, Gigante, and Taking Candy. The winner ran 1 1/8 miles over a “good” course in 1:48.20 and paid $8.46 as the slight favorite. He was given a 102 Beyer Speed Figure.
Spirit of St Louis, bred by Chester Broman and Mary Broman, might have been bred in New York but he has a Kentucky pedigree: By Medaglia d’Oro and out of Khancord Kid, by Lemon Drop Kid.
He’s now won 11 of 16 starts, answering the call when Brown stepped him up in competition. The important middle distance turf races through the summer come either at one mile or distances longer than 1 1/8 miles. The first one of those is the 1 3/16-mile Manhattan, on June 7 at Saratoga, a New York venue for a New York-bred turf star.
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