Adventist captures second-level allowance feature at Ellis Park

Adventist was a late edition to next week’s Fasig-Tipton Horses of Racing Age sale in Lexington. But he didn’t stay in the auction long, with owner Jeff Treadway telling trainer Mike Maker that the 4-year-old colt was coming out after capturing Ellis Park’s $42,000 second-level allowance feature by 1 3/4 lengths over Zambian on Tuesday’s special July 4 card.

Reached by phone in Louisville, Maker said shortly after the race that he wasn’t sure what Adventist’s next start might be because he might be sold. A few minutes later and after an exchange of text messages with Treadway, Maker still didn’t know where Adventist might run, but that he was coming out of the sale.

Adventist won his first start by 11 1/4 lengths then was third in New York’s Withers, Gotham and Wood Memorial but was detoured from the Kentucky Derby to Belmont Park’s Peter Pan a week later, finishing fourth. The colt took second in the Ohio Derby but then was seventh in the West Virginia Derby and two subsequent allowance races.

Sent to Maker at Gulfstream Park for a new start on grass, the son of Any Given Saturday won a 7 1/2-furlong turf allowance, then had a pair of seconds at 1 1/16 miles.

“They had high hopes for him all along, and he’d been kind of an underachiever,” Maker said. “They were hoping the surface change would kind of turn him around… We finally got the performance we were expecting. Maybe he’s just a true miler.”

Adventist settled into mid-pack on the fence under jockey Corey Lanerie, tipping to the outside rounding out of the far turn and wrestling command in the final eighth-mile of the mile turf race. Zambian was bottled up behind horses before Shaun Bridgmohan found a seam on the inside, prevailing in the four-horse logjam for second over Go Navy Go and Allidoisdreamofyou in the field of eight older horses.

Adventist paid $6 to win after completing the mile in 1:33.23 — 0.63 seconds off the 12-year-old course record over firm turf that has been producing glib times.

“The first time I saw him was today,” Lanerie said. “Nobody says anything; they just leg you up and let you go. It worked out well. He was the best horse. He was fun to ride.

“I was watching the 6 horse (Zambian, a Churchill Downs allowance winner), as I thought he was the horse to beat. He was looking for room to go, so I ducked to the outside, tried to come around and make it tight where he wouldn’t have anywhere to go and he’d have to come around me. It seemed to work out.”

Lanerie, who won three races on Tuesday’s card, will miss defending his titles in this Saturday’s ostrich and camel race, instead riding in Iowa at Prairie Meadows’ stakes festival. “I don’t know who is more disappointed, me or my wife,” he joked.

Source: Ellis Park (Jennie Rees)