In Love Delivers Lobo Second Straight Turf Mile Score

After finishing fourth in last year's FanDuel Breeders' Cup Mile Presented by PDJF (G1T), trainer Paulo Lobo intends to double team the upcoming World Championships.

As much as Ivar  is likely to make a return trip to the Mile, he'll have some company in the starting gate as Lobo picked up another Mile starter Oct. 9 when In Love  charged to a 1 1/2-length victory over Tell Your Daddy  in the $750,000 Keeneland Turf Mile Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland to secure a free "Win and You're In" spot in the Nov. 6 grade 1 turf stakes at Del Mar.

"He had been improving," Lobo said about In Love, "and I had been telling people, be careful of a confident horse."

Meanwhile, the horse who won last year's Breeders' Cup Mile at Keeneland, Order of Australia , finished 12th and last as the 6-5 favorite in his first United States race since the World Championships.

"We got a great post position. Going to the first turn we had a great spot, but he didn't show up," Order of Australia's jockey John Velazquez said.

In Love certainly showed up in giving Lobo and the owners back-to-back wins in the Keeneland Turf Mile.

In notching his first graded stakes win, the Agnes Gold  gelding owned by Bonne Chance Farm and Stud R D I was coming off a pair of victories. The first came in allowance optional claiming race at Arlington International Racecourse and was followed by a 2 1/4-length score in the $330,160 TVG Stakes at Kentucky Downs that had him poised for a breakthrough victory Saturday.

"I think the big key was we went to Arlington and tried an easier spot, and he won the race, and then we put blinkers on him and he improved a lot, and running the one-turn mile—they are very unfamiliar in South America with that," Lobo said about the gelding who started his career in Argentina. "You know, Kentucky Downs horses get very fit. And also he loves it here (at Keeneland). Last year he won an allowance very easy here, and I think the giving ground helped him."

Bred in Brazil by Fazenda Mondesir and Stud Rio Dois Irmaos out of the Known Heights mare Last Bet , the 5-year-old gelding is a half brother to the group 1 winner Last Kiss  (Elusive Quality ) and full brother to the group 2-placed filly Love Story. He is the fourth of seven foals and one of four winners from Last Bet, who also has a yearling full brother to him.

In Love and jockey Alex Achard were seventh in the field of 12 after a half-mile in :47.30 as 59-1 shot Brown Storm  set the pace. As the longshot faded leaving the quarter pole and a line of horses surged toward the lead, In Love swung into the six path in the stretch and had clear sailing on the outside to move past Somelikeithotbrown  leaving the eighth pole and complete the mile in 1:34.84 on good turf.

Sent off at 12-1 odds, In Love ($26.60) gave Achard his first grade 1 win. His only other U.S. graded stakes victory came aboard Abby Hatcher  in this summer's Chicago Stakes (G3) at Arlington.

"(Winning my first grade 1 win) feels great. Especially at Keeneland—I love Keeneland—and it couldn't be any better," Achard said.

"He's getting older but he's getting better," he added of In Love. "He's like a good wine. Every race he shows up and he's even better every time."

The win was the fifth in 13 starts for In Love and lifted his earnings to $729,700.

Flying P Stable's Tell Your Daddy, a son of Scat Daddy trained by Tom Morley, emerged from a wall of horses to take second by a half-length over Skychai Racing and Sand Dollar Stable's Somelikeithotbrown, a New York-bred son of Big Brown   trained by Mike Maker.

Ivar, who was an aforementioned fourth in the Mile after winning last year's Keeneland Turf Mile for Lobo, was a head back in fourth after bumping with Tell Your Daddy in the stretch. It was his first race since the May 1 Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic Stakes (G1T) and second since the Mile.

"Also, I liked a lot (of Ivar's effort). I think he was fighting a lot off the long layoff. I think maybe we are going to have three horses in the Breeders' Cup," said Lobo, who, in addition to his two Mile candidates, trains Imperador  who has a "Win and You're In" spot in the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T).

There was an inquiry involving Tell Your Daddy and the stretch run but the stewards made no change to the order of finish.

Video: Keeneland Turf Mile S. (G1T)