Gormley wins the thrilling Sham stretch drive

Gormley returned to the winner’s circle after he won a head to head stretch duel with American Anthem to take the $100,000 Sham (G3) on a sloppy and sealed Santa Anita race track. The victory give the connections of trainer John Shirreffs and owners Jerry and Ann Moss a chance to win a second Kentucky Derby to go with the roses that they won in 2005 with Giacomo.

As a sub-plot, the battle of the top two betting choices in the Sham pitted jockeys Victor Espinoza on Gormley (8-5) against Mike Smith on the favorite, American Anthem (1-1). Of course those two riders will renew their rivalry when they meet in the Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 28, with California Chrome and Arrogate.

Today, it was Espinoza that set the tone for the race when he rushed Gormley out of post-position five to get a quick advantage.  At that point Smith had no choice but to hustle American Anthem along to the rail from the one post to contest Gormley.

“It didn’t surprise me how well he broke out of there today. When he’s feeling good, he breaks quickly and already running,” said Espinoza. “In the Breeders’ Cup he broke slow, but today he came into the race in really good shape and got into it right away.”

And so it was going into the first turn, Smith and American Anthem were able to get the lead and the inside position. For the first five-eighths of the race, Espinoza was happy to sit just behind Smith and the leader in the two path. Those two were running fast with fractions of 22.54, 45.46, and 1:10.13.

Heading into the final turn, Espinoza began to ease the son of Malibu Moon right up to Smith and American Anthem. By the time they straightened out for home, they were dead even and far in front of the rest of the field. Down the stretch, both horses gave their all with seven furlongs going in 1:22.70, and even at that pace neither one backed down at all. Gormley got a very narrow advantage approaching the wire and was able to prevail by a nose.

After the race Shirreffs said, “That was a great race. He’s still young. You never know what they’re going to do so it’s always interesting. We’re very proud of him. He’s quick. He starts quick, he gets away quickly. But then he checks himself as he gets into the race and he relaxes.  It was great to see him pick it back up again and get it done.

The Sham is the first race on the 2017 West Coast Road to the Kentucky Derby and thus Gormley earned 10 qualifying points to go with the 10 points from the FrontRunner in October of 2016. His career record moves to 4: 3-0-0 with earnings of $296,000. For his supporters at the betting windows, Gormley returned $5.20, 2.80, and 2.40 across the board.

American Anthem picked up his first 4 Kentucky Derby points in only his second career start. His record stands at 2: 1-1-0 with $51,200 in earnings. As the favorite he paid $2.60 and 2.20. After the race Smith added, “For only his second time out, that was pretty impressive. If we’d been on the outside…I think that probably would’ve helped a little bit getting beat a half a nose.”

For his third place finish Big Hit picked up two Derby points and for fourth place, Bird is the Word got the final qualifying point.

In the end the thrilled Jerry Moss said, “We knew Gormley was primed and ready for this and happily he came through. The other horse [American Anthem] is very tough. It feels fantastic. It feels great, nice to be here. We think we have a really nice horse and we’re hoping for good things.”