Gallant Turk won the Morven Park Races highweight amateur-rider hurdle like a stakes horse–with professional
ease. Under his owner-rider Ted Thompson, he stalked the pace set by Almost There (Diana Gillam), poached the leaders around the final turn and smoothly accelerated to the lead after the last to win by 43D4 lengths, Leesburg, Va., Oct. 9.
“I just had to sit there, wait, wait, wait, and push the button when it was time to go,” said Thompson. “He made me look good.”
That Gallant Turk won the race looking like a stakes horse is no surprise. The son of Turkoman, formerly owned by Calvin Houghland, showed flashes of promise early in his jump career, like finishing second in the novice hurdle stakes at Callaway Garden (Ga.) in 2002. But his form was inconsistent. After finishing fourth in this spring’s Iroquois stakes (Tenn.), Houghland graciously gave Gallant Turk to Thompson and his wife Dabny, because he knew how much the horse meant to the jockey/trainer team. The horse now runs under the green-and-white colors of the Thompsons’ Nashville, Tenn., barn, Gone Away Farm.
“You can’t say enough about Mr. Houghland’s generosity. Dabny and I love this horse, and as I’ve always ridden as an amateur, it made sense to put him in these hurdle races. Besides,” said Ted with a grin, “we needed the money.”
Ted joked that Gallant Turk picks up a check every time he races–the groom’s award–as the striking bay is one of the most beautiful horses in steeplechasing.
The highweight hurdle, designed to encourage amateur participation, is run over 3 miles, the perfect distance for Gallant Turk. “He’s a 17-hand Thoroughbred with an incredible cruising stride and he jumps beautifully,” said Ted. “He was pretty proud of himself. He knew he won that race; he’s all ego that horse.”
The highweight hurdle started the day’s racing, and in the second race, the maiden claiming hurdle, the Thompson’s Gone Away Farm silks again crossed the finish line first. Under apprentice jockey Zach Miller, Woodmont just came up inside Kinross Farm’s Justoneofdaboyz (Matt McCarron) to snatch the win away by less than a length.
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Miller, who had ridden the horse to third place at Fair Hill (Md.) in the spring, tracked McCarron all the way around the 21D4-mile course. “Woodmont wants to be handy and run on the pace, so it was easy to keep him interested. We jumped the last together, and it was just a close race after that. When you come up the lane riding against Matt, you can never be sure you’re going to win–he’s too good for that–but I did know I had him with about five strides to go,” said Miller.
For the young apprentice jockey and for the Thompsons, this was a feel-good win. The Thompsons have only six horses in training, and as an apprentice jockey with less experience than a journeyman, Miller has to scrap for every ride.
“Riding a winner is more special when you do it for people like Ted and Dabney,” said Miller. “They work so hard. They don’t have a big string of horses, and people like them are the backbone of this sport; they are consistent players. They believed in someone like me enough to give me a chance, even though for them, every race is really important, and I was just really glad I could do well by them.”
“Zach gave Woodmont a beautiful ride,” said Ted. “He’s a good rider, and when you ride Zach you’re not handicapping yourself.”
Morven proved a feel-good day for Tennessee trainers too. After the Thompsons took the first two races, trainer Mike Berryman, from Johnson City, Tenn., sent Jeff Murphy out on Floor Play to take the conditioned claiming hurdle.
Murphy had never sat on the horse, and Floor Play’s pre-race antics in the saddling enclosure made him wonder if he wanted to, but once the flag dropped, Murphy said the strapping bay was a dream ride.
“I was told to keep him in the middle of the pack, but we jumped off so well we ended up second behind Deadly Force [Michael Cooney]. Then when Deadly Force tired, I’m Hit Sarge [Brooks Durkee] came up and went wide on my outside and gave me a lead around the final turn,” said Murphy. “So I was lucky I had horses keeping him interested the whole way.”
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St. Malachi (Chip Miller) also went with I’m Hit Sarge, and those two raced down to the last together with Floor Play. I’m Hit Sarge took a tumble on landing–neither jockey nor horse were hurt–and St. Malachi took off up the lane.
“I thought I’d made a mess of things, then my horse just exploded after the last,” said Murphy. “It looked like Chip’s horse idled a little out there on his own, which gave me a chance to get to him. We were riding so close at the end I couldn’t get my stick out to use it.”
In the training flat, things didn’t exactly go as planned either for trainer Doug Fout. Morven Park’s flat race is often used as a last prep run for stakes horses heading to the Breeders’ Cup hurdle stakes (N.J.), Oct. 23. As this year’s race shapes up to one of the most competitive races in a long time, anxious moments abound as trainers try to carefully train to the big day.
Fout entered Royal Chase (Ky.) winner Hirapour in the training flat, the horse’s first run since he won the $175,000 race. Joined by fellow Breeders’ Cup nominees Popular Gigalo (Chip Miller), Preemptive Strike (Robert Walsh), and Pelagos (Zach Miller), the race should have been won by a stakes horse. Instead an upstart by the name of Stress, whom Fout also trains, ran away with the race in a gutsy wire-to-wire run.
Ridden by Fout assistant Vicki Lawrence, the 5-year-old gray, in only his second career start, went straight to the lead, setting a torrid pace. Sensibly, the stakes horses raced 10 to 20 lengths off, biding their time, thinking the little gray would get tired and come back.That never happened.
Even when the field turned for home and Stress seemed to falter, his lead diminishing rapidly as the big horses made their run, the gray thumbed his nose at them and started pulling away again in the stretch to win by more than 7 lengths. Hirapour was second.
Lawrence, who gallops the headstrong horse at home, said she knew she couldn’t hold him, so didn’t even try. When Fout came to congratulate Lawrence on her win, it was with a bit of a wry tone.
“Hey,” said Lawrence, defending herself, “his instructions were to stay away from Hirapour no matter what!”