Spooky Channel looks for 'more ground' in Louisville Stakes

Spooky Channel, winner of a stakes-quality turf allowance Saturday at Churchill Downs, will likely run back under the Twin Spires on June 13 in the Grade 3, $100,000 Louisville Stakes.

"That's probably the next stop on the radar for him," trainer Brian Lynch said Tuesday.

Lynch said he's leaning toward the 1 1/2-mile Louisville for the 5-year-old son of English Channel "because he's more effective when he gets out to more ground."

The gelding's only other win this year also was at a mile and a half in the W.L. McKnight Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park in January. Since then, he shows consecutive fifth-place finishes in the Mac Diarmida Stakes (G3) and the Kitten's Joy Pan American Stakes, both at Gulfstream, before his score at Churchill Downs.

"He’s genuinely a horse that wants to get out a mile and a half, that sort of distance," Lynch said. "He ran very, very well the other day at a mile and a sixteenth, but I think he’s more effective the further he goes. The further he goes, the better he is."

Spooky Channel got his start by winning six of his first eight races at tiny Turf Paradise in Arizona.

Since then, Lynch said, "he's improved immensely to be able to run like he did on Saturday. He's obviously becoming an older, stronger, sounder horse who's found his niche."

Spooky Channel is owned by Terry Hamilton, who also teamed up with Lynch to campaign Heart to Heart, a multiple graded stakes winner also sired by English Channel, who Lynch called "a very affordable sire."

Hamilton has "been a great supporter," Lynch said, "and he seems to be very lucky to come up with these sorts of horses. And we've been lucky enough to get lucky for him. So it's been a good combination over the years.

But Heart to Heart and Spooky Channel are "two totally different horses," Lynch said. "Heart to Heart was just a lovely, genuine gentleman to have around the barn. Very unassuming -- you wouldn’t even know he’s there.

"Whereas this guy, he’s called Spooky Channel for a reason. He can be a spooky, a bit flighty guy, and he can get easily upset even though he’s a gelding, where you’d think he’s a bit more laid back. He can get his cage rattled quite easily, so he’s more of an intense sort of dude and requires a lot more time spent with him than Heart to Heart did."