Russell Road Seeks Fourth WV Classic

Russell Road and Lucy's Bob Boy—with 97 starts and nearly $3 million in earnings between them—will square off for the fourth consecutive year in the $500,000 West Virginia Breeders' Classic Oct. 10 at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. The 1 1/8 mile dirt test is the marquee event on the West Virginia Breeders' Classics XXIX card, which includes nine stakes races worth nearly $1.1 million in purse money.



Owned by Mark Russell and trained by James Casey, defending champion Russell Road is seeking to become the first ever 4-time winner of the country's most lucrative state-bred race, having won it previously in 2009, 2011, and 2014. Judiciously campaigned as a 9-year-old, the son of Wheaton will be making just his fifth start of 2015, but has shown few signs of aging this year with a pair of wins and a second-place finish. 



"Every year, this is what it's all about," Russell said. "This has always been the goal for us, even when we come home right after the last Breeders' Classic. We take him home for three or four months and bring him back slow and just get him ready for October."



Immediately prior to his 4 3/4 length score in the Roger Ramey Stakes, his lone poor effort this year came in the Frank Gall Memorial in August, but Russell says there was more than a viable reason for the substandard performance.



"We had two glue-on shoes on him in the (Frank) Gall and he lost both of them," Russell said. "Since that faux pas, we've nailed them back on and there hasn't been a problem. We don't expect there to be any issue with that on Saturday."



With a finish of third or better on Saturday night, Russell Road will become just the second West Virginia-bred in history to top $2 million in career earnings, and another victory would put him less than $125,000 behind Soul of the Matter, the top earner all-time bred in the Mountain State.



Russell Road isn't the only horse the Russell-Casey tandem will send out in the Breeders' Classic, as they also team up with Charitable Annuity, a winner of three of his last four starts, including the Robert Leavitt Memorial Stakes Aug. 7. Charitable Annuity is the only 3-year-old in the field.



"Every year it gets more special for me with Russell (Road), but especially with (his) career winding down now, and a young prospect like Charitable Annuity coming on, that gives me new fuel for the fire to continue on and look forward to this race next year," Russell said.



Jose Montano will ride Russell Road, the 5-to-2 second choice on the morning line, while Antonio Lopez has the call on Charitable Annuity.



Russell Road's chief rival and 9-to-5 morning line favorite Lucy's Bob Boy will be looking for his second win in the Breeders' Classic, having won the 2012 edition by a commanding eight lengths.



Most recently, in the $100,000 Wild & Wonderful, Lucy's Bob Boy got off to an awkward beginning before being rushed up to contest the pace and faltering late to finish seventh.  While the result was uncharacteristically poor for Lucy's Bob Boy, his trainer Sandra Dono says it's a race you can draw a line through due to the issues at the start that compromised his chances.



"I'm trying to forget everything about the Wild & Wonderful—the whole thing," Dono said jokingly. "He's been fine, though, and we didn't have to alter his training at all. We open galloped him this distance a couple of times and he should be ready to run his race."



While there was an ostensible reason for his performance in the Wild & Wonderful, Lucy's Bob Boy hasn't been the model of consistency he had been earlier in his career when he won 15 of his first 19 outings. After two wins in three starts to begin his 6-year-old campaign, the gelded son of Flatter found himself on the losing end of the battle with Russell Road in the Confucius Say and then could do no better than fourth in a handicap at Charles Town in his next start. Immediately before the Wild & Wonderful, Lucy's Bob Boy seemed on the right path to getting back on track with a victory in another handicap, which he followed up on by avenging his previous defeat to Russell Road in drawing off to win the Frank Gall by 5 1/4 lengths.



Much like Russell Road, with the $2 million mark in his sights, Lucy's Bob Boy is gunning for his own milestone as a second-place finish would make him racing's newest millionaire for owner Michael Furr.



Jevian Toledo will ride Lucy's Bob Boy for the third time as he seeks to pilot his second winner of a $500,000 race at Charles Town after taking the 2014 Charles Town Oaks (gr. III) with Miss Behaviour.



Phyllis Susini's Hidden Canyon will be making his 14th start and has shown talent over a career that has been slowed down by injuries but he has never crossed the finish line worse than second. Most recently, Hidden Canyon ran second by a half-length to millionaire Pants on Fire. Despite suffering his second consecutive defeat, trainer Javier Contreras couldn't have been more pleased with Hidden Canyon's effort.



"He ran such a huge race and I was just so proud of him," Contreras says about his horse's first try in unrestricted stakes company. "There's no shame in losing to the horse who beat him, and the next day he was happy and eating up, and it was almost like he hadn't run at all."



Another difference between Hidden Canyon and the established duo at the top of the West Virginia bred ranks is that the Breeders' Classic will mark his first start beyond seven furlongs. Sire Fiber Sonde is a half-brother to sprint champion to Speightstown, so there appears to be some distance questions on—a concern which Contreras shares.



"I am a little worried about the mile and an eighth to be honest," the trainer said. "We're hoping the pace slows down just a bit and that is able to help us out."



Hidden Canyon breaks from post 8 under regular jockey J.D. Acosta.



Others in the field include Airspeed, a winner in five of his seven starts; Little Big Sime, second behind Russell Road in the Roger Ramey; 2014 West Virginia Lottery Breeders' Classic victor Prince of Windsor; and Captain Klink, the third entrant for trainer James Casey.