Ever So Lucky turned in 5 furlongs for the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland
Augustin Stable’s 3-year-old colt, Ever So Lucky, has been pointed toward the Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes to face the gray/roan threat, Hansen, who will be looking to end the Kentucky Derby prep races session on a high, but Ever So Lucky with some solid
works prior to the race makes him a solid contender.
Jonathan Sheppard trained Ever So Lucky, who is already at Keeneland turned in a work of five furlongs there on 3 April, 2012, which he covered in 59 2/5 seconds, and with the expected start in the Blue Grass Stakes, Ever So Lucky will run over a distance
of 1 1/8 miles on 14 April, 2012, over the Lexington track’s synthetic surface.
The work wasn’t alone, as Ever So Lucky went out on the track in company of Piquant, who is still a maiden, and was given a start of five lengths ahead of Ever So Lucky at the beginning of the work, but Ever So Lucky was good enough to peg back his stable
mate and at the far turn he gradually pulled away, and then galloped out six furlongs in 1 minute and 12 seconds.
“I’m happy with it,” Sheppard said. “We gave him a target. He made up ground a little too quickly, but they all do that. He gobbled him up at the eighth-pole. Once he got to the front he didn’t have to do too much.”
It was an impressive start for the Kentucky bred son of Indian Charlie, out of mare Bally Storm by Summer Squall, Ever So Lucky, who downed his debut race at first asking, but couldn’t do the same to Gemologist, who made Ever So Lucky finish second in the
Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs.
His last race was a third to winner, Trinniberg at about seven furlongs in the Grade 3 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
“He has been ever so unlucky,” Sheppard said. “It’s hard to judge what goes through a horse’s mind. It’s very confusing for him. We had him pretty much prepped but then he doesn’t get to run and says, ‘What’s going on here?’ But his last race was good; we
weren’t going to try to chase the speed.”
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