Pants On Fire Headlines Ack Ack
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Multiple stakes winner Pants on Fire
returns to Churchill Downs for the first time since a run in the 2011
Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (Grade I) to head a field of 10
3-year-olds and up
in the 21st running of the Ack Ack.
The Ack Ack
Handicap and Locust Grove complete the roster of four stakes races on
the first Saturday of Churchill Downs’ Sept. 6-29 race meeting. The
races will accompany the $150,000-added Pocahontas (GII),
a 1 1/16-mile race for 2-year-old fillies, and the $150,000-added
Iroquois, a Grade III race for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles
A post time of 6
p.m. (all times Eastern) is set for the first of the 11 races scheduled
on “College Rivalry Night,” during which patrons are urged to wear the
colors of their favorite college teams and
vote for a share of $10,000 in college scholarship funds that will be
given away by Churchill Downs.
George and Lori Hall’s
Pants On Fire will be the starting high weight at 121 pounds in the Ack
Ack, which will be run at one mile on the main track. The 5-year-old
son of Jump Start comes into Saturday’s
race off a victory in the Monmouth Cup (GII), but enjoyed his most
significant success at three, when he finished ninth to Animal Kingdom in the Kentucky Derby and won the Louisiana Derby (GII) at Fair Grounds and the Pegasus (GIII) at Monmouth Park.
Trained by Kelly Breen, Pants On Fire has a 7-3-4 record in 21 career races with earnings of $1,131,060. He will be ridden by Paco Lopez and will break from post three in the Ack Ack, which
is scheduled as the ninth of 11 races on the program with a post time of 10:11 p.m.
Pants On Fire’s rivals include a pair of veterans from the barn of trainer Steve Asmussen in Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC and WinStar Farm’s Brethren, winner of the recent Evangeline Downs
Mile, and Winchell’s Sabercat, another Kentucky Derby veteran who finished third to his entry mate in the race at Evangeline Downs. Sabercat finished 15th in the 2012 Kentucky Derby won by I’ll Have Another.
Other contenders include Clovertowne Farm’s homebred Taptowne, winner of the West Virginia Governor’s Handicap at Mountaineer Park and runner-up in the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker (GIII) in
his most recent starts for trainer Tim Glyshaw, and James Tafel’s homebred Looking Cool,
a 3-year-old son of Candy Ride who will face older horses for the first
time. Looking Cool won the Iowa Derby (GIII) at Prairie Meadows for
Hall of
Fame trainer and two-time Kentucky Derby winner Carl Nafzger.
The field for the
Ack Ack (with jockey, weight and morning line odds) from the rail out:
Brethren (Rosie Napravnik, 117, 4-1); Good Morning Diva (Corey Lanerie,
115, 5-1); Pants On Fire (Lopez, 121, 2-1);
Right to Vote (Shaun Bridgmohan, 116, 15-1); Taptowne (Calvin Borel, 118, 5-2); Looking Cool (Brian Hernandez Jr., 116, 10-1); Moe Man (Leandro Goncalves, 114, 15-1); and Sabercat (Ricardo Santana Jr., 116, 12-1).
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