LEXINGTON, Ky. – Manny Franco started breezing the 3-year-old turf horse Test Score last summer at Saratoga, before the colt ever raced. Monday at Keeneland, Franco piloted Test Score to his first stakes win, a 1 1/4-length victory in the Grade 3, $400,000 Transylvania Stakes.
“I’ve been working with him since he was a baby. He’s gotten a lot better,” Franco said.
Monday at Keeneland could not have been much better for Franco, who won the $400,000 Lafayette Stakes one race before the Transylvania.
Franco said Test Score still hasn’t hit his peak, that the colt runs in spots and hasn’t fully brought to bear his talent, but with help from a great trip, Test Score proved good enough in the Transylvania.
“He broke so sharp. That was the key to the whole race,” Franco said.
Indeed, Test Score shot out of the gate like a sprinter, briefly on top before Mi Bago was hustled from an outside post to lead, Clock Tower hot on his heels through a quarter-mile in 23.01 seconds and a half in 47.35. Test Score rated kindly in fourth, creeping into contention around the turn under Franco’s steady urging. Not until he’d straightened for home and changed leads a few beats later than ideal did Test Score begin making serious progress, but at the three-sixteenths pole he found his stride, and by the furlong grounds had taken the lead. Running dead straight and focused, Test Score passed the wire with fuel still left in his tank.
Test Score made it two wins from two starts over the Keeneland turf, which was in remarkably good shape after taking rain, often heavy, for more than four days. A third-start maiden winner after trying the With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga in his second out, Test Score gave trainer Graham Motion his second Transylvania win following Sy Dog’s in 2022. After a Keeneland maiden win in October, Motion saddled Test Score to a close second in the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance on Nov. 1 at Del Mar, brought him back into action three months later with a third-place finish in the Kitten’s Joy at Gulfstream, and had Test Score at the top of his game in the Transylvania, which was scheduled for last Friday before Keeneland postponed the first two days of the spring meet owing to the volume of rain.
Scipio, in from California for trainer Richard Baltas, closed from ninth after three-quarters of a mile to finish second, a good performance. Jockey Flavien Prat said Scipio wasn’t really taking him anywhere down the backstretch, but Prat saved ground around the far turn and Scipio came alive for the stretch run.
Maui Strong, who’d won the Kitten’s Joy, got a perfect ground-saving, pace-stalking trip and parlayed it into a third-place finish, 1 1/4 lengths behind Scipio. Behind him came 9-5 favorite Reagan’s Wit, who was in position to win at the eighth pole but went somewhat flat from there to the finish.
Test Score clocked 1:43.84 for 1 1/16 miles on a good course and paid $21.48. A homebred, Test Score campaigns for Amerman Racing and is by Lookin At Lucky out of Joy of Learning, by Kitten’s Joy. He has taken his lessons well, earning a Grade 3 on Monday at Keeneland.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.