Alwaysmining Returns to Defend Title in $75,000 Jennings
Alwaysmining Returns to Defend Title in $75,000 Jennings
Coconut Cake Making Stakes Debut in $75,000 Geisha
LAUREL, MD – Runnymoore Racing’s multiple stakes winner Alwaysmining, unraced since last summer, is set to launch his comeback Saturday in defense of his 2020 victory in the $75,000 Jennings at Laurel Park.
The 79th running of the Jennings for 4-year-olds and up and 48th edition of the $75,000 Geisha for females 4 and older, both traveling one mile and restricted to Maryland-bred/sired horses, are among six stakes worth $550,000 in purses on a Winter Carnival program that kicks off Maryland’s 2021 stakes calendar.
Post time for the first of nine races is 12:25 p.m.
Alwaysmining has won a pair of stakes in each of his three racing seasons. He capped his 2-year-old campaign with victories in the 2018 Maryland Juvenile Futurity and Heft and opened 2019 by sweeping Laurel’s sophomore series – the Miracle Wood, Private Terms and Federico Tesio – and earn himself a berth in the Preakness (G1), where he finished 11th after racing in contention early.
The 5-year-old Stay Thirsty gelding has won twice in nine subsequent starts, the Jennings and John B. Campbell at Laurel last winter, then ran third in the Harrison E. Johnson Memorial, one of the last stakes before Maryland paused live racing in mid-March amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Alwaysmining returned to be ninth after a troubled start in the one-mile Blame last May in Kentucky, came back to run seventh after pressing the early pace in a one-mile allowance at Laurel, and was given time off at the owner’s Runnymede Farm in Pennsylvania. The farm hired Austin Trites as its trainer in September, and he has been overseeing preparations since.
“They really just kind of hit the reset button due to the poor performance, a couple in a row. When I arrived it was pretty much at the point where he was ready to go back into training, so we put him back in training October first.
“Obviously with a horse coming off a few bad starts and a six-month layoff, you have a lot of questions to answer,” he added. “But to say that this horse hasn’t answered every question so far in terms of his training, I’d say he’s done so emphatically.”
Trites, 34, worked for trainers Gary Contessa, Christophe Clement and George Weaver and has had five career starters according to Equibase statistics, all in 2018, winning with his first, The Critical Way, that April at Keeneland.
Alwaysmining began working his way back over the farm’s uphill six-furlong track and progressed to the point of registering three timed breezes over the all-weather surface at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., the most recent a five-furlong move in 1:00.20 Jan. 10.
“When we got him here I was thinking we might have had him five-eighths fit, and he’s proved it since we got to Fair Hill. I can’t get him tired on the Tapeta,” Trites said. “I was looking for any excuse to skip the Jennings, but it’s really at the point where he is really just taking us there. We’re excited to get him back, and you’ve got to start somewhere.”
Alwaysmining, nine-for-14 lifetime at Laurel, will be Trites’ first starter since The Critical Way ran sixth in the Mighty Beau overnight stakes June 2, 2018 at Churchill Downs. Sheldon Russell has the mount from Post 7 in a field of nine.
“I had no expectations at all. I really thought I was just getting him started and I honestly could not believe that he stayed with me,” Trites said. “It’s been an honor and a pleasure and hopefully he runs well and we can start his 5-year-old campaign off right.”
The Jennings attracted a solid field including Hillwood Stable’s multiple stakes winner Cordmaker, third in the historic Pimlico Special (G3) in 2019 and 2020; Corrales Racing’s 2020 Concern winner Air Token; Designated Hitters Racing’s My Friends Beer, the 2020 Private Terms runner-up who competed in one of two divisions of the Arkansas Derby (G1); seven-time Laurel winner Galerio; Now Or Never Stable’s Oxide, a winner of two straight over the main track; Tattooed, third in the 2020 Maryland Million Classic; and the hard-hitting pair of Hall Pass and Hanalei’s Houdini from trainer Hamilton Smith.
“He’s just been like a warrior. I just keep leading him over there and he just keeps trying and running as hard as he can,” Tattooed’s trainer Tim Keefe said. “This might be a little stretch for him with a couple of the other horses that are in there. He’ll always try. It’s what he does.
“He always goes out there and tries. Give him the opportunity and he’ll go out and run his race,” he added. “If he runs as well as he’s been training and been running, you never know what might happen. We figured this is a good opportunity to take a shot with him.”
Coconut Cake Making Stakes Debut in $75,000 Geisha
Three months later than originally planned, NRS Stable, James Chambers and trainer Tim Keefe’s Avalon Farm’s Coconut Cake is set to make her highly anticipated stakes debut in the $75,000 Geisha.
After going unraced at 2, Coconut Cake won four of six starts as a 3-year-old with one second and one third. She took a three-race win streak, one on turf and two on dirt, into the Oct. 24 Maryland Million Distaff but was forced to miss the race with a minor foot issue.
Coconut Cake was second in her return Dec. 3 before capturing a similar seven-furlong, second-level optional claiming allowance spot Dec. 31 under jockey Forest Boyce, who will be back in the irons from outside Post 6.
“We kind of pointed toward this race as we went along. Fortunately we were able to kind of knock out a couple of those conditions and kind of bring her along slowly and let her develop,” Keefe said. “Certainly when you’ve run six times and have four wins, a second and a third you’ve got to be happy.
“She tries every time. She’s been a real nice filly,” he added. “I don’t know how good she is, but she seems like she’s getting a little bit better each time. She’s a fun horse to have in the barn and we’re looking forward to running her on Saturday.”
At one mile, the Geisha will be the longest race to date for Coconut Cake, a daughter of 2014 General George (G3) winner Bandbox out of the English Channel mare English Muffin bred in Maryland by Mr. and Mrs. Charles McGuinnes.
“I don’t think stretching her out to the mile is going to be an issue. We’ve been 5 ½ and three-quarters and seven-eighths and she just seems to be able to get the distance every time we put her there,” Keefe said. “I am a little anxious to stretch her out because I think the farther she goes, potentially the better she’ll be.”
All five of Coconut Cake’s stakes rivals have stakes experience led by James Wolf’s Artful Splatter, who upset Anna’s Bandit in last year’s Geisha. Also by Bandbox, she won the George Rosenberger Memorial Dec. 26 at Delaware Park before running fifth in the Maryland Million Distaff and seventh in the Thirty Eight Go Go behind subsequent Allaire du Pont (G3) winner Eres Tu.
Artful Splatter, trained by Kieron Magee, has seven wins and two seconds in 16 lifetime tries at Laurel and six wins and a second from seven starts on an off track. The forecast is calling for rain all day and overnight Friday and into Saturday.
“Artful Splatter is certainly a standout on the slop so I guess she’d be hard to bet against if the track does come up sloppy,” Keefe said. “We’ve kind of raised the bar a little more each time with [Coconut Cake]. I like where we’re breaking on the outside and she’s coming into it well.”
Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Robert LaPenta and Bridlewood Farm’s Gale exits a fifth-place finish as the favorite in the Nov. 27 Comely (G3) at Aqueduct, where she got bumped and stumbled at the start and raced in contention before tiring. The 4-year-old daughter of 2014 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Tonalist made each of her first three starts at Laurel, winning a 1 1/16-mile maiden claimer on the turf and one-mile restricted allowance, both over older horses.
She’smysunshine, S W Briar Rose and Kiss the Girl are also entered.
