McLaughlin excited about Muqtaser in Kentucky Turf Cup

Out of his 6,926 lifetime starters at the racetrack, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin has run only three horses at Kentucky Downs.

But he’ll have two Saturday, most importantly Muqtaser in the $600,000 Calumet Farm Kentucky Turf Cup for Shadwell Stable, which also has Mutazen in a $145,000 second-level allowance race. McLaughlin has only one career win at Kentucky Downs, but it was a good one.

“We’re excited to be there. I think if you look back in the history, Shadwell and McLaughlin won one of the first runnings of this race,” McLaughlin, New York-based but raised in Lexington, said by phone, adding with a laugh, “So we are familiar with Kentucky Downs.”

That would be Fahris, the 1999 winner back when the purse was $300,000, with no additional money coming from Kentucky-bred purse enhancements, and not far removed from when the track was named Dueling Grounds and shut down for two years before its sale.

Muqtaser comes into the 1 1/2-mile Kentucky Turf Cup off two Saratoga allowance victories at 1 3/8 miles. The horse started out in England and apparently was such a handful that he was sent to the United States and gelded. The Kentucky Turf Cup is Muqtaser’s first stakes since running in minor races in England, where he won the $18,700 Slug & Lettuce Midweek Meet Handicap Stakes at Sundown Park.

“He’s not an easy horse to ride, and Joe Bravo has done a great job on him in the afternoon,” McLaughlin said referencing the jockey who has guided Muqtaser to a close second and those Saratoga victories in his past three starts after the horse lost by 32 and 29 lengths last winter on the dirt at Aqueduct. “He’s tough to train and ride. But he’s doing really well, and we’re happy to be in that race, thinking he might like that course.

“Like I said, this horse is doing great.”

Muqtaser is beautifully bred. He is a son of the prominent stallion Distorted Humor and out of the Tiznow mare Life Well Lived, who also is the mom of Keeneland’s Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile winner American Patriot. Also from that female family is Dubai World Cup winner Well Armed.