Flintshire casts a big shadow over Sword Dancer field
A half-length away from being undefeated in the United States, globe-trotting Flintshire is an absolute monster when it comes to turf routing. The defending champion of Saratoga's Grade 1 Sword Dancer Stakes, the Juddmonte bred and owned 6-year old also counts two consecutive runner-up efforts in the prestigious Group 1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe among his career credits. Combine his résumé with his most recent performance, and it's not hard to see why most of our best turf runners would rather take the path of least resistance.
In last month's Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes, Grand Tito, Twilight Eclipse, and Can'thelpbelieving, plus their respective jockeys, tried everything possible to keep Flintshire out of the winner's circle. Grand Tito and Jose Ortiz practically walked on the lead, putting up crawling splits of :26.53, :53.14, 1:19.44, 1:44.20 (mile), and 2:07.34. Meanwhile, Can'thelpbelieving and Irad Ortiz, Jr. kept Flintshire pinned along the rail for the majority of the race while Twilight Eclipse and John Velazquez drafted in behind them.
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Heading into the stretch, Ortiz, Jr. asked Can'thelpbelieving for run and moved alongside Grand Tito while Twilight Eclipse moved up to take over “pin Flintshire on the rail” duties. Suddenly boxed in, Flintshire was forced to take up and watch as Twilight Eclipse then moved up alongside Can'thelpbelieving to make a wall of three across the track in front of Flintshire. Nonplussed, Javier Castellano simply moved Flintshire to the center of the course and let Flintshire take over from there. Under a hand ride and with his usual impressive turn of foot, Flintshire simply cruised past his three foes to post a facile win despite all the roadblocks thrown at him.
For this year's edition of the Sword Dancer, Grand Tito and Twilight Eclipse are back to try once again to derail Flintshire. Joining them are newcomers Money Multiplier, Roman Approval, Inordinate, and Applicator. While Grand Tito has proven able to get the job done against lesser competition, he tends to get caught late against top runners. Veteran Twilight Eclipse has lost a step or two since last year, and Inordinate, the other Juddmonte entry, appears a cut or two below the rest of the field. Applicator appears to be way overmatched here, as well, but he one of his two career wins did come at 1 1/2 miles, the Sword Dancer distance, two starts back. Money Multiplier and Roman Approval are intriguing, though.
Money Multiplier had two very nice runner-up efforts this year in grade 1 races, first in the Man O' War and then in the United Nations, finishing behind top notch runners Wake Forest and World Approval respectively. He most recently bested Roman Approval in an optional claiming event earlier this month. Prior to running second to Money Multiplier in his last race, Roman Approval ran second to Kasaqui in the Arlington Handicap. Kasaqui then went on to finish second in the Grade 1 Arlington Million. If anyone is going to manage to upset Flintshire, I believe it will be one of these two.
However, I do not foresee anyone upsetting Flintshire. Even if he stumbled to his knees coming out of the gate, Flintshire has proven too good to let something like that stop him. He proved that last out and nothing has changed since then. He truly is in a class all of his own.