Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Bluegrass Cat Wins Haskell Invitational
Posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006
Bluegrass Cat earned a record seven-length victory in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Sunday. The stage is now set for a summer showdown at Saratoga in the Travers Stakes: Bluegrass Cat vs. Bernardini.
Bernardini is considered the leading 3-year-old with victories in the Preakness Stakes and the Jim Dandy.
Travers will be the first-time matchup against the two winners. The colts did not meet in the Triple Crown races. Bluegrass Cat was second to Barbaro in the Kentucky Derby and to Jazil in the Belmont Stakes; Bernardini skipped those races and won the Preakness, the race everyone remembers as the one in which Barbaro shattered three bones in his right hind leg.
“It’s good to have competition,” Bernardini’s trainer Tom Albertrani said after another of his 3-year-olds, Deputy Glitters, finished eighth in the Haskell. “Bluegrass Cat is the only horse that we haven’t faced that is one of the better 3-year-olds left out there. It will make for an interesting race.”
A promising son of Storm Cat without a breakthrough win, Bluegrass Cat started from the outside No. 9 post and moved into contention under jockey John Velazquez around the turn for home. Then, the colt blew past pacesetting Praying for Cash and rolled to the largest winning margin in 39 runnings of the Haskell. Majestic Light won by six lengths in 1976.
The victory was the fifth in 10 starts for Bluegrass Cat, who earned $600,000 to boost his bankroll to $1,561,280 for WinStar Farm. He came into the Haskell 0-for-4 since winning the Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on Feb. 18, and in his three previous wins the colt was tested throughout. Not this time.
“This was his biggest race — he put it all together and dominated,” Elliott Walden, WinStar’s farm manager, said. “His other wins were close. It’s nice to see him get that killer instinct.”
Bluegrass Cat returned $4, $2.80 and $2.40 as the even-money favorite — the 10th favorite to win the Haskell in the last 13 years. The winning time for the Grade 1, 1 1/8-mile race was 1:48.85.
"Bluegrass Cat Wins Haskell Invitational" was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Horses, Monmouth Park, Owners & Breeders, Saratoga, Stakes Races, Trainers, USA Horse Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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