Spooky Channel Scary Good Off Layoff in Buddy Diliberto
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Photo: Hodges Photography / Amanda Hodges Weir
Spooky Channel wins the Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds
NBS Stable's Spooky Channel provided Jason Barkley with his first stakes win as a young trainer when the gelding captured the Sycamore Stakes (G3T) at Keeneland in October 2021. Now, Spooky Channel has provided him with another achievement: a stakes victory after being unraced for more than 14 months.
Racing for the first time since the 2021 Sycamore following recovery from a lesion on a tendon discovered that winter, the 7-year-old English Channel gelding returned triumphant Dec. 26 in the $99,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, winning by 2 1/4 lengths over English Tavern . The victory was his third in a row, stretched over more than a 16-month period.
Barkley praised the patience and opportunity provided by the gelding's ownership, the John Ballantyne-headed NBS Stable, veterinarian Dr. Wes Sutter for his care and stem cell treatment, jockey James Graham, groom Jose Garcia, and his wife and assistant, Shelby, for galloping Spooky Channel.
"We kind of had the means," Barkley said. "He had a good prognosis for a return when it all happened, and we did all we could.
"We let him tell us along the way. We agreed back in January when we started the progress that if he wasn't going to be the same horse that we were just going to retire him, but he showed every step of the way that he was the same horse, and we kept on with it. He proved yesterday he came back just as a good, if not better."
Spooky Channel is held by his groom with trainer Jason Barkley alongside the gelding after his victory in the 2021 Sycamore Stakes at Keeneland
Barkley, who also ran seventh-place Bizzee Channel in the Dilibero, said he watched the race alongside trainer Joe Sharp, whose horse, Big Agenda , ran third. The two hugged after the Diliberto.
Barkley was previously an assistant trainer for Sharp, as he was for his father, Jeff, and Wesley Ward.
"It's not like coming off a freshening—it's coming back from what is most of the time career-ending for a lot of horses," he said. "To bring him back speaks to the team and the effort that everybody put in."
Barkley said Spooky Channel exited the Diliberto in good condition, leaving him eyeing the $200,000 John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes (G3T) Jan. 28 at Sam Houston Race Park as an intended next race. Spooky Channel previously won that 1 1/2-mile turf race in January 2021 for then-owner Terry Hamilton and then-trainer Brian Lynch.
Three months later, Barkley claimed Spooky Channel for $80,000 from a high-end allowance optional claiming race at Churchill Downs. The Calumet Farm-bred gelding, out of the Kitten's Joy mare Spooky Kitten , is 3-1-0 in six starts since and 12-4-0 in 26 overall starts with earnings of $661,722.
Earlier this year, NBS Stable purchased Spooky Channel's full brother from the Buckland Sales consignment to the September Yearling Sale at Keeneland for $300,000.
"We'll have him to hopefully look forward to for eight years as well," Barkley quipped.