Kentucky Derby winning trainer Graham Motion and Preakness winning trainer Dale Romans are dueling again with their horses. This time it’s not with Animal Kingdom and Shackleford on the dirt with three-year olds, it’s with older turf horses, Smart Bid and Guys Reward at Colonial Downs Saturday evening in the Colonial Turf Cup.
Colonial Downs’ officials changed the conditions of the $500,000 Colonial Turf Cup, opening it up for older horses. In previous years it served as a prep race for the $600,000 Virginia Derby that is run in July. Hopes that officials had to attract the previous winners that swept its signature three-year old turf races were dashed when 2009 winner Battle of Hastings was injured on Kentucky Derby day at Churchill Downs and 2010 winner Paddy O’Prado was injured and retired on Preakness day at Pimlico. Post time for the Colonial Turf Cup on the Secretariat Turf Course is at 7:55 p.m.
The Turf Cup did attract 2008 Virginia Derby runner up Court Vision (7-2), who as a three-year old, battled champion Gio Ponti in deep stretch in that race. Court Vision has won four Grade 1 races since then. Motion has the favorite in Smart Bid (2-1) and Romans has a contender in Guys Reward (9-2). Edgar Prado gets the mount on Smart Bid. Prado led the jockey standings at Colonial Downs during the early years of the track and won the Virginia Derby three times. Corey Nakatani rides Guys Reward for Romans. Other contenders include Rahystrada and Brazilian-bred Moryba, with Sierra Alpha, Silver Mountain, and Dark Cove rounding the field out.
In Smart Bid’s last start, Prado rallied from three-lengths down to finish second to Get Stormy in the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs. In March, he won the $400,000 Mervin Muniz at the Fairgrounds. Smart Bid is a five-year old horse sired by Smart Strike, whose offspring historically perform well at Colonial Downs.
Also on Colonial’s 11-race card is the $100,000 All Along that Motion has won four times, including the last two years in a row. This year he saddles two in the nine-horse field, favorite Aruna (1-1) and Apple Charlotte (12-1).
Crozet’s Braeburn Farm starts Frisky Thunder (12-1) in the 11-horse field of the $50,000 Da Hoss Stakes, led by favorite Mikoshi (5-2), who will be saddled by the trainer of 2006 Kentucky Derby winner of Barbaro, Michael Matz.
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