Antiquarian wins Jockey Club Gold Cup; Mindframe loses rider
In an anticlimactic finish, Antiquarian was a 13-1 upset winner Sunday in the Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga. The bigger story was his stablemate Mindframe, whose rider Irad Ortiz Jr. was dismounted shortly after the start of the 1 1/4-mile race after being squeezed from the outside.
“Obviously, it was horrible that that happened,” said Todd Pletcher, who trains both horses. “Mindframe is fine. Fortunately, he kind of slowed down, and the outriders were able to catch him safely. It’s a shame that it happened.”
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Ortiz was reported by the New York Racing Association to be alert and moving his limbs after the fall. He complained of right-ribcage and left-wrist pain as he was being examined in the brief time between his fall and his being removed from the homestretch before the horses came back around.
“He’s cleared to ride,” jockey agent Steve Rushing said in a 7:22 p.m. EDT text message to Horse Racing Nation after Ortiz had been taken to Albany Medical Center. “Looks like he escaped serious injury.”
Phileas Fogg (16-1), ridden by Kendrick Carmouche, angled sharply inward from post 7 in the eight-horse field and started a chain reaction that led to Mindframe (9-5) being knocked off balance and Ortiz trying to cling to his irons. After he fell, Ortiz appeared to be stepped on or over by post-time favorite Sierra Leone (1-1), whose rider Flavien Prat tried to sidestep his way through. Édgard Zayas miraculously held onto White Abarrio (11-1), who also was caught in the bottleneck.
After a stewards inquiry, Phileas Fogg was demoted from third place to unplaced, according to a NYRA news release which clarified the disqualification.
“In the state of New York, a horse may be disqualified if, in the opinion of the stewards, a horse is impeded, interfered with or intimidated at any point during the run,” NYRA steward Víctor Escobar said. “Shortly after the start, the 7 Phileas Fogg veers left sharply, intimidating multiple horses to his inside, causing a significant chain reaction which ultimately resulted in the unseating of jockey Irad Ortiz off of Mindframe. As a result we disqualified the 7 Phileas Fogg from third place and ordered him last.”
Contrary Thinking (70-1), the rabbit for his Chad Brown-trained stablemate Sierra Leone, and Phileas Fogg, who was trying to pre-empt his rival’s pace-making, vied for the lead through early fractions of 23.00, 46.96, 1:11.92 and 1:36.83. Antiquarian and jockey John Velázquez, who drew widest, raced in mid-pack before moving forward into the homestretch.
Phileas Fogg started to draw away along the rail before Antiquarian took the two path to catch up with him. Sierra Leone made his textbook rally from last place but was no match for Antiquarian, who won by 1 1/2 lengths with a final time of 2:02.16. He paid $28.00, $8.30 and $4.50.
Sierra Leone finished second and paid $3.10 and $2.10. Asked if the incident early in the race cost his colt, Prat said, “You can definitely guess that he would have ran better.”
Highland Falls (7-1), who won this race last year, was promoted from fourth to third and returned $3.80 to show. White Abarrio was moved up from fifth to fourth.
Antiquarian is a 4-year-old Preservationist colt owned by Centennial Farms who most notably won last year’s Peter Pan (G2). He came in off second-place finishes to Mystik Dan in the Blame (G3) and to Phileas Fogg on July 4 in the Suburban (G2). Antiquarian added $550,000 to bring his earnings to $944,100 from a 9: 4-3-0 record.
The win came with an automatic berth Nov. 1 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, a race won last year by Sierra Leone and in 2023 by White Abarrio.