The Player to target Clark Handicap 2017 at Churchill Downs
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Photo:
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Following a three-length score in Saturday’s $200,000 Fayette Stakes (Grade II) at Keeneland, Carl Hurst and William “Buff” Bradley’s The Player will target the $500,000 Clark Handicap Presented by Norton Healthcare (GI) on Friday, Nov. 24 at Churchill Downs.
“He came out of the race in good shape,” Bradley said. “We’ll target the Clark for our next start.”
The Player, a 4-year-old chestnut colt by Street Hero, rallied from just off the pace in the Fayette and took the lead at the top of the stretch over the Todd Pletcher-trainee Neolitic to win at odds of 8-1.
“Calvin (Borel) rode a great race,” Bradley said. “We thought he would go 1 1/8 miles and he proved it.”
Owned and bred by Bradley in partnership with Hurst and Buff’s late father Fred, The Player comes from a deep-rooted home-grown pedigree from the mare Hour Queen whose mother, Town Queen, was Bradley’s first stakes winner.
Fellow Clark hopeful, Hoppertunity, finished second in his first start off a seven-month layoff in Saturday’s Comma to the Top Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Trainer Bob Baffert reported prior to the Comma to the Top that Hoppertunity could run in the Clark for a fourth time and then possibly test the Dubai World Cup (GI) in late March.
The Clark Handicap is the most lucrative stakes race of Churchill Downs’ Fall Meet. The 143rd running of the 1 1/8-mile test for 3-year-olds and up annually lures some of the top older horses in North America and is one of seven stakes events to be contested over Thanksgiving weekend. Total prize money offered throughout the meet’s 221 scheduled races is a hefty $11.25 million, which averages to more than $535,000 per day.
Source: Churchill Downs
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