Maryland Juvenile Futurity Next for Undefeated Jaxon Traveler
Maryland Juvenile Futurity Next for Undefeated Jaxon Traveler
Juvenile Fillies Take Center Stage When Live Racing Returns Thursday
Runaway Distaff Winner Hello Beautiful Pointed to Nov. 28 Stakes at Laurel
LAUREL, MD – West Point Thoroughbreds and Marvin Delfiner’s 2-year-old colt Jaxson Traveler, undefeated through two impressive starts in Maryland, is being pointed to the $100,000 Maryland Juvenile Futurity Dec. 5 at Laurel Park to cap his rookie season.
Terry Finley, West Point’s founder, president and CEO, said the plan is for Jaxon Traveler – based with Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen’s New York string at Belmont Park – to make his stakes debut in the seven-furlong Futurity for Maryland-bred/sired horses.
“He’ll finish out the year there,” Finley said. “He’s in the right hands. Steve does well with a lot of different horses, but he’s positively shown that these are the kinds of horses that he likes to deal with, as well. One of his trademarks is fast 2-year-olds, and this one fits the bill.”
Jaxon Traveler debuted Sept. 25 at Pimlico Race Course with a front-running 10-length maiden special weight romp in 1:10.41 for six furlongs, and followed up with an equally impressive four-length allowance score in 1:09.34 Oct. 23 at Laurel, both under jockey Johan Rosado.
Bred in Maryland by Dr. and Mrs. A. Leonard Pineau, his connections had hoped to get Jaxon Traveler into the Maryland Million Nursery Oct. 24 but not being Maryland-sired, he did not draw into the race.
“He’s freakishly fast,” West Point COO Tom Bellhouse said. “The race at Pimlico came up with the big purse for him being a Maryland-bred, so we jumped on it. We wanted to run in the stake and got excluded, which was really tough, but with the allowance race the day before we said, ‘Let’s just keep him on schedule.’ Quite honestly, the purse was secondary to keeping him on schedule once we didn’t get into the stake. Obviously he showed his stuff.
“He’s just a really cool horse. Everything about him is so professional,” he added. “I went down to Belmont to watch him work before the last race, and he just was so workmanlike. He just went out there like it was nothing. He doesn’t turn a hair. He’s just one of those horses that acts like he’s 8 years old instead of a 2-year-old.”
Originally purchased for $80,000 as a yearling by David McKathan’s Grassroots Training & Sales last September, Jaxon Traveler fetched $140,000 in the Ocala Breeders’ spring sale that was delayed from April to June amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We knew he was very talented, and he’s a fast horse. He won by 10 in his first start, but you never know with young horses,” Finley said. “You never know what’s going to show up against you, but we thought he would be tough to handle in his first start. We really would have liked to have run in the stake but it just wasn’t meant to be. In the last 10 years we’ve been 1-9 like four or five times and we’ve gotten beat three of those times. They do get beat, but he put together another good race and it’s good spacing to the race in early December.”
Bellhouse said the Futurity gives Jaxon Traveler ample time between starts, reunites him with a surface he likes and should set him up for a what they hope is a promising sophomore season.
“Barring anything changing, I think that would be ideal to finish out the year for him in that race and then Steve will set up a winter plan for him,” Bellhouse said. “You love the development. It’s one of those things, get him another race and keep him developing and then it’ll be up to Steve to see how far does he want to go and where he wants to take him for the winter. He looks like a really special type colt.”
Juvenile Fillies Take Center Stage When Live Racing Returns Thursday
Led by a maiden special weight scheduled for Laurel Park’s world-class turf course that drew a total of 16 entries, juvenile fillies will share the spotlight with a trio of events for the return of live racing returns Thursday.
Post time for the first of eight races is 12:25 p.m.
Robert LaPenta and Madaket Stables’ Gherardini, a 2-year-old daughter of champion Bernardini that sold for $150,000 as a yearling last fall, is entered to make her career debut in Race 4, carded for one mile over the Kelso turf course layout.
Gherardini, out of the Broad Brush mare Brush Hour, joined trainer Brittany Russell’s string last month after working at Saratoga during the summer. She has had five timed breezes over Laurel’s main track including a mile in 1:47 Oct. 24 for Russell, who has four wins, a second and four thirds from nine starts at the fall meet.
“She’s pretty tight. She came with a good bottom under her. I just kind of finished her off a little bit,” Russell said. “I gave her kind of a long work the other day and she did it really, really well. She should have plenty of air to get the mile.”
Russell’s husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, has the call from Post 5. The local forecast is calling for 1-2 inches of rain during the day Thursday following overnight showers.
“She’s nice. She’s done everything right in the morning. I’m excited to get a run into her,” Brittany Russell said. “It looks like we [might] have a sloppy track tomorrow, but I don’t see a reason not to give her a shot. I think she’ll handle it the way she trains in the morning. Naturally I’m going to check with the ownership and see what the track is actually like. If it’s just a sloppy track I think it’s fine.”
Two horses, Cajole and Our Bella Nicole, are entered for main track only. Adele Dilschneider and Dell Hancock’s Cajole is one of two horses from the barn of trainer Michael Matz along with 5-2 program favorite Momentita, bred and owned by Helen Groves Revocable Trust. Both horses are winless in two previous maiden special weight starts, Momentita’s each coming at Thursday’s distance and surface.
Also on Thursday’s card is a waiver maiden claimer sprinting six furlongs for 2-year-old fillies which drew a total of 17 entries and was split into two divisions. The first comes in Race 2 and is led by Joey Platts, Andrew Molasky and Jeff Davenport’s Mischiefs Model. Bred in Maryland by Timothy Rooney and trained by Claudio Gonzalez, the bay daughter of Into Mischief fetched $200,000 as a yearling last September. She has run second in her first two starts under similar conditions, beaten just a head last out after taking a 2 ½-length lead into the stretch Oct. 8. Angel Cruz returns to ride from outside Post 8.
The second division is carded as Race 4 and drew a field of nine, seven of them first-time starters including Country Life Farm’s co-homebred Moonsafe, a bay daughter of Mosler, who picked up his first stakes winner as a sire with 2-year-old filly Miss Nondescript in the Maryland Million Lassie Oct. 24. Also making her debut is Runnymoore Racing’s Alwaysinmotion, a Fast Anna filly purchased for $100,000 at auction last January and trained by Michael Matz. They are respectively listed at 4-1 and 9-2 on the morning line.
Races 4 and 5 are part of a 20-cent Rainbow 6 sequence that begins in Race 3 and features a carryover of $7,665.34 from Sunday’s last live program.
Runaway Distaff Winner Hello Beautiful Pointed to Nov. 28 Stakes at Laurel
Trainer Brittany Russell said sophomore filly Hello Beautiful came out of her victory in the Maryland Million Distaff in good shape and is likely to return to stakes action Nov. 28 at Laurel.
Six $100,000 stakes are on tap for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, including the seven-furlong Safely Kept for 3-year-old fillies and the six-furlong Primonetta for fillies and mares 3 and up. Her 11 ¼-length romp in the Distaff marked Hello Beautiful’s second try against older horses and first win.
“Hello Beautiful is great. She came out of the race fantastic, that’s the most important thing. It sort of feels like as well as she trains all the time in the morning, you have to walk them over there and see where you are. At least she justified that we felt like she was doing well.”
Last year, Hello Beautiful followed her win in the Maryland Million Lassie with a triumph in the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship. She has won two of five starts in 2020 that included out-of-town trips to the Prioress (G2) and Audubon Oaks.
“There’s some races at the end of November at Laurel,” Russell said. “We’ll nominate to the 3-year-old race and the 3-and-up race and just see how those races come up. It’s great to have options, and she loves seven-eighths.”
