Russell Road Looks to Add Fourth West Virginia Breeders’ Classic

The pair of Russell Road and Lucy’s Bob Boy – with all of 97 starts and nearly $3 million in earnings between them – will square off for the fourth consecutive year in the $500,000 West Virginia Breeders’ Classic coming up on Saturday night at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. The 1 1/8 mile, $500,000 West Virginia Breeders’ Classic is the marquee event on the West Virginia Breeders’ Classics XXIX card which includes 9 stakes races worth nearly $1.1 million in purse money.

Owned by Mark Russell and trained by James W. Casey, defending champion Russell Road is seeking to become the first ever 4-time winner of the country’s most lucrative state-bred race having won it previously in 2009, 2011 and again in 2014.  Judiciously campaigned as a nine-year-old, the son of Wheaton will be making just his fifth start of 2015 but has shown few signs of aging this year with a pair of wins and a second in his four starts to date.  His Beyer speed figure of 93 in April’s Confucius Say Stakes was the strongest figured he’d run in nearly 2 years, while his 85 in the Roger Ramey Handicap on September 19 was 6 points higher than the 79 he earned in the start immediately preceding his victory in last year’s Breeder’s Classic.

With his star reaching the end of his career, Russell says the campaign is very carefully orchestrated with an eye on the prize come October.

“Every year.  Every year, this is what it’s all about,” explained Russell.  “This has always been the goal for us, even when we come home right after the last Breeders’ Classic. We take him home for three or four months and bring him back slow and just get him ready for October.”

Immediately prior to his 4 3/4 length score in the Roger Ramey, his lone poor effort this year came in the Frank Gall Memorial in August, but Russell says there was more than a viable reason for the substandard performance.

“We had two glue on shoes on him in the (Frank) Gall and he lost both of them.  Since that faux pas we’ve nailed them back on and there hasn’t been a problem. We don’t expect there to be any issue with that on Saturday.”

With a finish of third or better on Saturday night, Russell Road will become just the second West Virginia-bred in history to top $2 million in career earnings and another victory would put him less than $125,000 behind Soul of the Matter for the all-time record for earnings by horse bred in the Mountain State.

Russell Road isn’t the only horse the Russell-Casey tandem will send out in the Breeders’ Classic as they also team up with Charitable Annuity, a winner of 3 of his last 4 starts including the Robert Leavitt Memorial Stakes on August 7.

Charitable Annuity – the only three-year-old in the field – is the type of horse that gives his owner hope, even with Russell Road likely facing the final handful of starts in his career.

“Every year it gets more special for me with Russell but especially with Russell’s career winding down now, and a young prospect like Charitable Annuity coming on, that gives me new fuel for the fire to continue on and look forward to this race next year.”

Jose Montano will ride Russell Road, the 5-to-2 second choice on the morning line while Antonio Lopez has the call on Charitable Annuity.

Russell Road’s chief rival, and 9-to-5 morning line favorite, Lucy’s Bob Boy will be looking for his second win in the West Virginia Breeders’ Classic having won the 2012 edition by a commanding eight lengths.

Most recently, in the $100,000 Wild & Wonderful on Race for the Ribbon night, Lucy’s Bob Boy got off to an awkward beginning before being rushed up to contest the pace and faltering late to finish seventh.  While the result was uncharacteristically poor for Lucy’s Bob Boy, his trainer Sandra Dono says it’s a race you can draw a line through due to the issues at the start that compromised his chances.

“Yeah, I’m trying to forget everything about the Wild & Wonderful.  The whole thing,” Dono said jokingly.  “He’s been fine though and we didn’t have to alter his training at all. We open galloped him this distance a couple of times and he should be ready to run his race.”

While there was an ostensible reason for his performance in the Wild & Wonderful, Lucy’s Bob Boy hasn’t been the model of consistency he had been earlier in his career when he won 15 of his first 19 outings.  After 2 wins in 3 starts to begin his six-year-old campaign, the gelded son of Flatter found himself on the losing end of the battle with Russell Road in the Confucius Say and then could do no better than fourth in a handicap at Charles Town in his next start.  However, immediately before the Wild & Wonderful, Lucy’s Bob Boy seemed on the right path to getting back on track with a victory in another handicap which he followed up on by avenging his previous defeat to Russell Road in drawing off to win the Frank Gall by 5 1/4 lengths.

Much like Russell Road with the $2 million mark in his sights, Lucy’s Bob Boy is gunning for his own milestone as a second place finish would make him racing’s newest millionaire for owner Michael Furr.

Jevian Toledo will ride Lucy’s Bob Boy for the third time as he seeks to pilot his second winner of a $500,000 race at Charles Town after taking the 2014 Charles Town Oaks (G3) with Miss Behaviour.

It’s hard to fathom a five-year-old being called the new kid on the block, but the moniker seems to fit when talking about Phyllis Susini’sHidden Canyon.  The gelding by Fiber Sonde will be making his fourteenth career start – 27 fewer than Lucy’s Bob Boy has made and 44 less than Russell Road. 

Still, Hidden Canyon has shown a wealth of talent over a career that has been slowed down by injuries but where he has never crossed the finish line worse than second.  Most recently, Hidden Canyon ran a game race in the aforementioned Wild & Wonderful only to lose by a half-length to millionaire Pants on Fire in the final jumps.  Despite suffering his second consecutive defeat, trainer Javier Contreras couldn’t have been more pleased with Hidden Canyon’s effort. 

“He ran such a huge race and I was just so proud of him,” Contreras says about his horse’s first try in unrestricted stakes company.  “There’s no shame in losing to the horse who beat him and the next day he was happy and eating up and it was almost like he hadn’t run at all.”

Another difference between Hidden Canyon and the established duo at the top of the West Virginia bred ranks is that the Breeders’ Classic will mark his first start beyond 7 furlongs.  Sire Fiber Sonde is a half-brother to sprint champion to Speightstown, so there appears to be some distance questions on paper – a concern which Contreras shares.

“I am a little worried about the mile and an eighth to be honest.  We’re hoping the pace slows down just a bit and that is able to help us out.”

Hidden Canyon breaks from Post 8 under regular jockey J.D. Acosta.

Others in the body of the race include Airspeed, a winner of 5 of 7 career starts, Little Big Sime, second behind Russell Road in the Roger Ramey, 2014 West Virginia Lottery Breeders’ Classic victor Prince of Windsor and Captain Klink, the third entrant for trainer James W. Casey.

Post time for the first race on West Virginia Breeders’ Classics night is 7:05pm EST, with the $500,000 West Virginia Breeders’ Classic set as the eighth race with a post time of 10:48.  Travis Stone, Churchill Downs’ full time announcer and on-track voice of the Kentucky Derby will be on hand to call his first West Virginia Breeders’ Classic.  Stone follows Larry Collmus who had called the previous three editions.  The featured Breeders’ Classic will be shown live on a Comcast Mid-Atlantic broadcast beginning at 10:30 while HRTV, The Network for Horse Sports, will provide in-studio coverage of much of the card.

$500,000 WEST VIRGINIA BREEDERS CLASSIC (WV)

October 10, 2015

Race 8 – Post time 10:48pm EST

3&up, 1 1/8 Miles

PP. Horse, Jockey, Weight, Trainer

1. Allegheny Jack, Xavier Perez, 122, Ollie L. Figgins, III

2. Airspeed, Arnaldo Bocachica, 122, Jeff C. Runco

3. Dancing Roy, Oscar Flores, 122, Timothy C. Grams

4. Little Big Sime, Katie Crews, 122, Joseph P. Stehr

5. Prince of Windsor, Travis L. Dunkelberger, 122, Ollie L. Figgins, III

6. Russell Road, Jose Montano, 122, James W. Casey

7. Lucy’s Bob Boy, Jevian Toledo, 122, Sandra A. Dono

8. Hidden Canyon, J.D. Acosta, 122, Javier Contreras

9. Captain Klink, Christian Hiraldo, 122, James W. Casey

10. Charitable Annuity, Antonio Lopez, 119, James W. Casey

ALSO ELIGIBLE

11. Fred High, Roimes Chirinos, 122, John J. Robb

12. Yes I See, Xavier Perez, 122, Henry Walters

13. Run Real Quiet, Antonio Lopez, 122, Gary L. Williams, Jr.

Source: Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races