Up the Backstretch: On Fire Baby working from fringe
Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) – Here we are in the final four months of 2014 and less than three months until the 31st Breeders’ Cup World Championships.
September racing begins with Belmont Park conducting its “Championship” meeting highlighted by the Saturday, Sept. 21 card featuring the 96th edition of the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles.
Making an appearance this autumn is Los Alamitos Race Course in Los Angeles as California racing fills in the absence of the once-proud Hollywood Park. Formerly a quarter horse track, Los Alamitos has received attention in thoroughbred circles for being the home track of Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner California Chrome and getting Eclipse Award winner Shared Belief to compete there. The 3-year-old gelding won the Los Alamitos Derby, formerly Hollywood’s Swaps Stakes, before winning the Pacific Classic versus older horses, including defending winner Game On Dude.
“He’s a special horse,” Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith said after guiding Shared Belief to the Pacific Classic win. “I heard someone say this might be the coming out of a super star. I think now this horse deserves that accolade. I’ll tell you what: He’s as good a young horse as I’ve sat on in a while.”
Pacific Classic competitor Clubhouse Ride will be in Saturday’s Los Alamitos Mile. The track is taking over the dates once kept by Fairplex at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.
Churchill Downs is running this September for the second straight year. The historic track, home of the Kentucky Derby, will have races for potential 2015 Run for the Roses and Kentucky Oaks candidates and stepping-stone events for this year’s Breeders’ Cup.
Pay special attention on Saturday to Churchill’s $100,000 Locust Grove, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares.
The 2-1 morning line favorite in the seven-horse field is On Fire Baby, trained by Gary Hartlage for Anita Cauley.
The 5-year-old gray mare always seems to be on the periphery of discussions concerning top older female thoroughbreds. She competes against the best of the division, always offering her best and able to slide home first every once in a while.
On Fire Baby won just once in 2013, coming home first in the prestigious Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park a race this year in which she finished second to leading older female Close Hatches. The mare’s lone 2012 win came in Oaklawn’s Honeybee Stakes.
In her first three starts of 2014, On Fire Baby was fourth in Oaklawn’s Azeri and second in the Apple Blossom. At Churchill on Kentucky Oaks Day, the mare got her victory in the La Troienne, one year after posting a runner-up result.
“Everything has been going according to plan,” Hartlage said after the La Troienne victory.
However, in her next start six weeks later, On Fire Baby threw in a clunker when she finished fifth in Churchill’s Fleur de Lis as the 13-10 favorite.
“She came out of her last race with some problems,” Hartlage said. “It wasn’t leg problems or anything; she just had some ulcers that were bothering her. We got everything cleared up and all systems are ‘go’ for Saturday.”
On Fire Baby, earner of $1,089,018, likes to be on or near the lead. The Locust Grove is the race in which she must begin a late-season move to no longer just be on the fringe of the older fillies and mares Eclipse Award talk.
Categorized in: Horses