Hoofit Not Nominated to Breeders' Cup
Trainer Graham Motion got the 17-day Fall Meeting off to a rousing start Friday by saddling two winners, the second being Mrs. S.K. Johnston Jr.’s Hoofit (NZ) in the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G3) by a nose over Aikenite.
The victory carried a spot in the starting gate for the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) to be run November 5 at Churchill Downs, but Hoofit is not nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program.
“I don’t know all the implications (of supplementing),” Motion said. “But it would be asking an awful lot of him and if anything he’d go in the (Breeders’ Cup) Turf Sprint (G2).”
The Friday victory was the second in two starts for Hoofit on an all-weather surface after making his first 16 starts on grass.
“He has been with us for a while, but it took him a long time to get to us,” Motion said. “He was in California for a while after arriving from New Zealand and he had lost some weight and he needed time to get over that.”
Motion’s other victory Friday came in the fifth race with the 2-year-old filly Sweet Seventeen, who remained undefeated in two starts. Motion did not fare as well in the sixth race when Thursby, the half-brother to Kentucky Derby presented by YUM! Brands (G1) winner Animal Kingdom, finished 10th in a field of 12 juveniles going seven furlongs.
“It was kind of puzzling,” Motion said of Thursby’s effort that followed a last-place showing on grass in his debut, also at seven furlongs. “He works well in the morning and has a nice way of going. With his breeding, he’ll be better going two turns.”