Horse Racing: Haskell Invitational gearing up to be quite the spectacle; Super Saver, Lookin at Lucy favourites
This is exactly what horse racing needs right now: a thrilling race that fans can look forward to. The $1 million Haskell Invitational is looking to offer more than one big name and a dominating favourite, like we saw at the Lady’s Secret Stakes. This time it’s a star-studded field, even if the there is a disparity between the gravity of the stars.
There’s no surprise that the spotlight falls on ‘Super Saver’ and ‘Lookin at Lucky.’ This is the first time ever that the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners are meeting at the Haskell Invitational. With Jockey Martin Garcia, ‘Lookin at Lucky’ won this year’s Preakness Stakes, and the same duo is teaming up again for Haskell. Trainer Bob Baffert is the most successful trainer at the Haskell Invitational, with 3 previous wins. He shares the title with Warren Croll, Jr. and Sonny Hine, and if Lookin at Lucky comes through for Bob, together they would have made history.
Of course, a field of 8 stands between Bob and history. Among the 8 is the other horse running in the Haskell Invitational who has won a leg of the Triple Crown this year: ‘Super Saver.’ Jockey Calvin Borel rode the horse to victory at the Kentucky Derby in stunning style, and the duo would do all it can to stop Lookin at Lucky.
Super Saver has something that Lookin at Lucky does not: Calvin Borel. Not to question Jockey Martin Garcia’s skills, but Calvin has just been in unmatched form recently. Aboard Rachel Alexandra, Calvin Borel won last year’s Haskell Invitational and won the Preakness stakes in the year before Martin Garcia won that race. The Kentucky Derby has belonged to Calvin for the past two years. At the Derby, the Super Saver and Calvin Borel duo crushed Lookin at Lucky and Martin Garcia. The favour was returned in Preakness, where Calvin failed to put up even a respectable fight.
While the Derby and Preakness winners may be the obvious favourites, also competing are runners-up from both the races. ‘Ice Box’, placed second in the Derby behind Super Saver, has been allotted the third stall. ‘First Dude’, who finished second behind Lookin at Lucky in Preakness, is a 6-1 favourite for the race. Bob, veteran of the Haskell Invitational, thought it was the toughest field he had seen at the event. “You have the best 3-year-olds in the country in there together,” he said.
A surprise favourite for the race is ‘Trappe Shot.’ At 3-1, he shares the odds with Super Saver. Trappe Shot has won all four of his starts this year, but so far has never been against a field of this depth quality. The buzz is following Trappe Shot more than anyone else, though. Linemaker for the Haskell Invitational, Brad Thomas, said that the public perception was very positive about Trappe Shot. “All I'm hearing is Trappe Shot, Trappe Shot, Trappe Shot,” he said. This would be a career first graded race for the horse. Trappe Shot has shown speed in his trainings to match anyone else’s, and that is perhaps what the public is responding to.
Trappe Shot would start in the outermost stall along with another of trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s entrants, ‘Uptowncharlybrown’. Kiaran said that he preferred the outside. “We just wanted to be outside of the speed so we can break and sit and see how it goes inside of us,” he said.
Lookin at Lucky has been placed along the rail, a position that caused him serious problems in the Kentucky Derby. His trainer was worried about the horse’s position in the race. "He's drawn the rail. That's him. I think his name has jinxed him his whole life," Bob said. "He's the most poorly drawn horse I've ever had."
Afleet Again (12-1) would start just outside of Lookin at Lucky (5-2), followed by Ice Box (9-2), First Dude (6-1), Our Dark Knight (15-1), Super Saver (3-1), Uptowncharlybrown (15-1) and Trappe Shot (3-1) in that order.
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