Kentucky Downs Journal - September 5th, 2024
By Eric DeCoster (@ericdecoster_ on X)
Thursday, September 5th, 2024 - Day 4 of 7
The Lowdown
We reach the midway point of the all-too-short meet this afternoon, with a 10 race card ahead headlined by a tough restricted stakes. We’ve been blessed with excellent weather through the first three days of racing and it looks no different today!
There was plenty of chatter over the weekend about a speed favoring surface and I think that has merit to it. Sunday felt slightly more balanced than Saturday, but all in all it paid to be forward. Most interestingly, it feels like the harder the tempo is earlier in the race, especially in shorter races, the more likely it is the forwardly placed horses stick around. Makes for a tough handicap, but we’ll give it a go. Let’s dive in.
For my thoughts on the Late Pick Five sequence today, be sure to listen to today’s Players’ Podcast with Mike Pribozie and myself. Listen here.
Weekend Recap & Trends
Frankie Dettori has taken Kentucky Downs by storm, posting his first three wins over the track on Saturday and bookending the card on Sunday. He’s been getting horses home while employing a variety of tactics and has clearly adapted to this track quickly. Jose Ortiz is equal in wins, albeit from 13 more mounts, but has been consistently putting his horses in the best place to succeed.
Irad Ortiz Jr. will make his first appearance of the season and has a loaded slate of
Quite a few jockeys are 0-fer on the meet, one of which is a big surprise. Joel Rosario sits at 0-for-17 through three days of riding despite having many live mounts each day. There’s really no explanation for it as these are the types of races he should be thriving in, so it’ll be interesting to see how he bounces back in the latter half of this meet. Other guys sitting without a win include John Velazquez (0-for-15), who historically struggles at KYD, and Cristian Torres (0-for-20), who I thought rode well here in 2023 and probably needs some more live mounts.
Joe Sharp has been all the rage so far this meet, totaling 6 wins from 17 runners over three days. There’s a chance the trainer’s title could be wrapped up with a win or two more. Steve Asmussen is also off to a quick start after struggling here in recent years, posting three wins so far. Two of those wins have come at the maiden level and he has maiden runners in Races 1 and 2 today. Mike Maker and Jonathan Thomas have both enjoyed solid success over the years at Kentucky Downs but are winless to this point. There’s time to turn things around with plenty of runners remaining but still surprising to see from both with fairly large sample sizes.
