Champions Clash Again in Smithwick Memorial
Champions and longtime arch-rivals Demonstrative and Divine Fortune will face off again in Thursday's $125,000 A. P. Smithwick Memorial, the first of two Grade 1 jump races at Saratoga Race Course.
Post time will be 1 p.m. for the 2 1/16-mile race over National Fences.
Jacqueline Ohrstrom's Demonstrative, the 6-5 program favorite, won last year's Eclipse Award as champion steeplechase horse with three consecutive Grade 1 victories after finishing second by a nose in the A. P. Smithwick.
The Elusive Quality gelding, now 8, kicked off his championship string with a win in the New York Turf Writers Cup, the second of Saratoga's Grade 1 steeplechase races. He subsequently won Belmont Park's Lonesome Glory Handicap and the Grand National at Far Hills, N.J., to lock up the title.
Trainer Richard Valentine will saddle Demonstrative, who won his only 2015 start over fences, the Grade 1, $150,000 Calvin Houghland Iroquois on May 9 at Nashville, and prepped with a Parx Racing flat win on July 12. Robbie Walsh will ride from post position 2 under 158 pounds.
Bill Pape's Divine Fortune, the 2013 Eclipse champion, was pulled up in last year's Smithwick, skipped the New York Turf Writers, fell at the last fence of the Lonesome Glory, and finished a valiant second in the Grand National.
But the Royal Anthem gelding, now 12, twice defeated Demonstrative last year, in the Iroquois, in which Demonstrative finished sixth, and in the Grade 1 Marion duPont Scott Colonial Cup at Camden, S.C., where Demonstrative finished third.
Divine Fortune also has only one start this year, a fourth-place finish in the Calvin Houghland Iroquois. Racing Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard will put 2014 champion jockey Willie McCarthy aboard Divine Fortune, 3-1, with the pair departing from post position 6 under 154 pounds.
Sheppard also will saddle Pape's Martini Brother (12-1), who is coming back after 16 months on the sidelines, and Parker's Project (8-1), owned by the Hudson River Farms of Albany developer Edward P. Swyer.
Elizabeth Voss, who took over the stable of her late father, Tom Voss, early last year, will send out The Fields Stable's Bob Le Beau, who had a breakout victory in the National Hunt Cup and is listed at 6-1 on the morning line. The Irish-bred gelding, who also won a Parx flat race on July 12, will be ridden by Jack Doyle and depart from post position 5.
Jack Fisher, currently the jumping sport's leading trainer by a wide margin, will take two shots at the Smithwick Memorial, with Petticoats Loose Farm's Choral Society, placed third in the Marcellus Frost Novice Stakes, and Harold A. Via's Hinterland, making his North American debut.
Sean McDermott rides Hinterland, 15-1, and current leading jockey Paddy Young will be aboard Choral Society, 20-1.
Completing the field is Diplomat, a Kitten's Joy gelding who made his American debut with a win in the Carolina Cup for novices and subsequently finished fifth in the Semmes. Owned by the Daybreak Stables of trainer Jimmy Day, Diplomat will be ridden by Bernie Dalton and is tabbed at 12-1 on the morning line.
Source: NYRA Communications