G3 Winner Name Changer Gets Started in Harrison Johnson
G3 Winner Name Changer Gets Started in Harrison Johnson
Victim of Love Stretching Out in $100,000 Nellie Morse
Among Four Stakes Worth $400,000 Saturday, March 14
LAUREL, MD – Colts Neck Stables’ homebred Name Changer, a Grade 3 winner of more than a half-million dollars in lifetime purses, will make the earliest seasonal start of his career and first at Laurel Park in nearly 40 months in Saturday’s $100,000 Harrison E. Johnson Memorial.
The 34th running of the 1 1/8-mile Harrison Johnson for 4-year-olds and up and 37th renewal of the $100,000 Nellie Morse for fillies and mares 4 and older going one mile are among four stakes worth $400,000 in purses on an 11-race National Pi Day program. First race post time is 1:10 p.m.
Now 7, Name Changer has raced only once since his victory in the Queens County Stakes in December 2018 at Aqueduct, finishing third as the favorite to Monongahela in the Swatara Nov. 27 at Penn National. The son of champion Uncle Mo returned to owner Richard Santulli’s New Jersey farm after spending the early winter in South Florida with Jorge Duarte Jr., who took over Colts Neck’s training when Alan Goldberg retired.
“He always shows up. He’s a hard-knocker. I’ve tried to carry on what Al started,” Duarte said. “He’s a nice horse and he’s made a lot of money for us. He’s one of the house favorites. He got a little freshening in Florida before he came back up to our farm at Colts Neck and he’s been training excellent. We’re looking forward to Saturday.”
Third choice on the morning line at 4-1, Name Changer has won each of his two career starts at Laurel Park – an optional claiming allowance in October 2016 and the 1 1/8-mile Richard Small Stakes a month later. In his sixth season of racing, he has never started earlier than April of his sophomore year.
“He won the Richard Small in the past and he’s done well at Laurel. I think it’s a good track for him,” Duarte said. “We’re coming from Florida and he’s doing very well. I think it’s a fair race track to run at, so we’re excited about it.”
Name Changer owns three career stakes wins, the biggest coming in the 2018 Monmouth Cup (G3). He has placed in four other stakes including the 2016 West Virginia Derby (G2), and was fourth behind Shaman Ghost in the 2017 Pimlico Special (G3).
“When he’s right, he shows up. He’s given us some big moments. He won the Monmouth Cup,” Duarte said. “He’s done it the hard way, but he’s made some money and it would be good to see him come back this year on a good note.”
Runnymoore Racing’s Alwaysmining is a nine-time career winner, all at Laurel Park, seven of them coming in stakes including each of his two races to open 2020 – the one-mile Jennings and about 1 1/16-mile John B. Campbell, the latter Feb. 15. In that race he dueled for the lead from the start, gave it up at the head of the stretch, but fought back through the lane to win by a neck over Monongahela, with Someday Jones third.
“I think that last race was his most impressive,” trainer Kelly Rubley said. “He certainly showed that he has a lot of heart and he almost ran the best numbers of his life so we’re hoping to duplicate that.”
His recent success marks the first wins for Alwaysmining since having a six-race win streak snapped when 11th in last year’s Preakness (G1). The stretch included a sweep of Maryland’s three sophomore prep races – the Miracle Wood, Private Terms and Federico Tesio, and has Rubley thinking the Stay Thirsty gelding, favored at 2-1 in the program – is rounding back into that form.
“I hope so. He’s certainly training that way. He’s a horse that loves to train, so it makes my job fairly simple,” she said. “He looks to me as though he’s filling out and developing into a really solid racehorse. We’re excited.”
Main Line Racing Stable and Alexandria Stable’s Someday Jones, who beat Alwaysmining in the 1 1/18-mile Native Dancer Dec. 28; Three Diamonds Farm’s Bonus Points, winless in nine starts since taking the Campbell last February including a third in last year’s Harrison Johnson; multiple Ohio-bred stakes winner Forewarned; Senior Investment, a winner of two straight; and Wait for It, fourth in the 2019 Pimlico Special, complete the field.
Victim of Love Stretching Out in $100,000 Nellie Morse
Tommy Town Thoroughbreds’ Victim of Love, exiting a trio of sprint stakes, will look to stretch her speed out to a distance where she’s had prior success for her next start in the $100,000 Nellie Morse.
Based at Penn National with trainer Todd Beattie, Victim of Love stepped up to graded company for the first time in the seven-furlong Barbara Fritchie (G3) Feb. 15, dueling for the lead and taking a one-length advantage into the stretch before settling for second behind Majestic Reason, a half-length ahead of 10-time stakes winner Anna’s Bandit in third. She is the co-third choice on the morning line at 9-2.
“She ran a real good race. I was very happy with her effort,” Beattie said. “I think we’re going to have to ride her a little different going a flat mile. She’s won going a flat mile, but not with stake horses. We’ll change it up a little bit, just a little, just to try to get that extra eighth of a mile with quality [horses].”
Victim of Love was third behind Nellie Morse rival Needs Supervision in the seven-furlong Safely Kept in November and opened 2020 beating Needs Supervision by 3 3/4 lengths in the 6 ½-furlong What A Summer Jan. 18. The daughter of champion sprinter Speightstown is three-for-six lifetime at one mile, including an October win at Laurel in her most recent attempt.
“I had her nominated to a stake going three-quarters in New York on Saturday also but she likes that track at Laurel, it’s a couple hours down the road and it looks like a better deal rather than having a change of surface and everything else,” Beattie said. “We’ve been putting her up on the bridle a little bit, but I think we’re going to be just more patient this time. I still think she’ll be up near it, but we’re just going to be a little more patient to try to get her a little more relaxation before we ask her to run.”
Beattie has noticed a difference in Victim of Love, who first joined his string last spring after making her first six starts at Zia Park and Sunland Park, including a win in the Island Fashion Stakes last February.
“She’s just really developing well and starting to get more mature. I think she was a pretty immature filly when I got her here from New Mexico and she’s just gradually getting a little bit better all the time. You can see her maturity, physically, and mentally she’s coming on the right way, too,” he said. “Everything is going good. She’s been on a very similar program and she worked well. I would expect her to do well.”
Gunpowder Farms, Millennium Farms, Gainesway Stable and LNJ Foxwoods’ Arrifana returns to Maryland for her 4-year-old opener after finishing second in the1 1/8-mile Comely (G3) last fall in her stakes debut. Prior to that, she won each of her first four career starts including all three tries at Laurel.
“I think she had a little bit of a rough trip last time. She got out a little late but overcame that and ran a great race,” trainer Kelly Rubley said. “I thought she ran an impressive race. I think there’s a lot more to come with this filly and we’re very excited to have her in the barn.”
Arrifana, the 9-5 program favorite, has worked five times over the all-weather surface at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. for her return, the last three of them bullets.
“She’s ready to go,” Rubley said. “We gave her some time after that last race. She had a little time off and she seems to be coming back stronger and better and we’re hoping for a great race.”
Jerry Romans, Charlie Spring and Zoom and Fish Stable Inc.’s Bye Bye Bertie takes a three-race win streak into the Nellie Morse. She came out of her maiden win last summer with a leg injury, returning with a front-running score Jan. 4 going six furlongs at Laurel.
She stepped up and stretched out with a second-level allowance win at seven furlongs Feb. 1, and will be making her stakes debut for trainer Hamilton Smith. She is listed at 10-1 on the morning line.
“She’s been doing real good, so we can’t complain about that,” Smith said. “She ran real good her last start; she ran good in all of them, really. We worked her the other day and kind of slowed her down in her work a little bit. We’ll see how she shows up Saturday.”
Bye Bye Bertie was second in her unveiling last July, beaten 1 ½ lengths by stakes-placed Helen on a day when Smith won four races.
“I had five horses in that day and I won with the first four and she was the last one. We thought she was the best of the five. I was trying to win five but I messed up. She finished second. That’s the way it always happens, the one you like the best gets beat. But she had a nice filly beat her,” Smith said. “We’ve been looking forward to running her all along. She’s a nice horse.”
Also entered are 2019 Monmouth Oaks (G3) winner Horologist, third in last fall’s Cotillion (G1) at Parx; Jennemily, a winner of her last two starts for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen; Lady Banba, fourth in the Monmouth Oaks; and multiple stakes winner Needs Supervision, fourth last out in the Barbara Fritchie.
