Todd Pletcher Wins Yet Another Champagne Stakes

 

It may be time to add an asterisk to the name of the one-mile October two-year-old stake at Belmont Park. The Champagne Stakes*, where the asterisk shows trainer Todd Pletcher’s recent dominance of this race. With today’s easy victory by Daredevil, Pletcher has now won three Champagnes in a row, four out of the last five, and six overall.

Daredevil came into the Champagne off of a six-length maiden win over a muddy track at Belmont Park just a few weeks ago. Today the track came up sloppy and the More Than Ready colt again relished the wet going as he drew off down the stretch to a very easy win. Daredevil was throttled down by jockey Javier Castellano as he won by what track announcer John Imbriale called a four-length margin. Castellano today won his second Champagne Stakes.

The Champagne is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series and thus gives the Lets Go Stable runner a “Win and You’re In” entry into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Lets Go Stable owned Verrazano who was also trained by Pletcher and is another son of More Than Ready.

Last year Pletcher won the Champagne with Havana and he went on to finish second in the Juvenile. In 2012 Shanghai Bobby won for Pletcher and he also took down his Breeders’ Cup race. Uncle Mo won this race in 2010, but he did not run in the World Championships. In 2006, Scat Daddy finished fourth in the Juvenile and Pletcher’s first Champagne winner, Proud Accolade in 2004, did not make it to the Juvenile.

At the start of this year’s Champagne Daredevil and Holy Boss broke alertly and Holy Boss took control of the race and was moved to the middle of the track by Rafael Santana. El Kabeir broke a bit slowly and was rushed up to contest the leader along with I Spent It. Those two did not seem to like the very wet surface and began to fade after the first quarter went in :22.97.

After a half mile Daredevil moved back into contention. Daredevil took the lead after six furlongs went in 1:11.36. Holy Boss had nothing left at that point and Daredevil skipped across the slop as Upstart passed tired horses to finish second. The Truth or Else was a distant third. El Kabeir ended up in fourth.

Pletcher was impressed with the way his horse ran, "I thought it was very impressive. He rated kindly and did everything you would hope one would do. He finished really well and I couldn't be more pleased. His training for us has been really impressive in the mornings. We'd never breezed him on an off track, so I was a little concerned running him the first time [on a muddy track September 13], but we felt pedigree-wise he would handle it, and he obviously does. He trains like a good horse on fast dirt, too."

Castellano talked about the way his horse got over the wet track, "He's a special horse. I worked him last weekend and he was very impressive the way he did it. The one thing I told Todd just now is that he reminded me of Bernardini when he won the Jim Dandy. He just splashed along today; he liked the track. He'll do whatever you ask him to."

Daredevil was sent off as the 8-5 betting favorite and paid $5.40, $4.00, and $2.80.