Limousine Liberal Gets Graded Glory in Churchill Downs

The right trip over the track that yielded his first bit of success was finally enough to get Limousine Liberal over the graded stakes hump.

It took more than a year, but race circumstance finally cycled back into the 5-year-old gelding's favor, as he just held off Awesome Slew by a head to take the $500,000 Churchill Downs Stakes Presented by Twinspires.com (G2) May 6. 

Limousine Liberal hadn't visited the winner's circle since taking an allowance race at Keeneland in April of 2016. Since that time, the son of Successful Appeal   knocked heads with some of the best in seven graded stakes races, running second three times during that span but failing to find his breakout win.

That all changed Saturday at Churchill Downs—the same venue where Limousine Liberal broke his maiden in June of 2015. Dismissed at 13-1 odds in the 14-horse field, Katherine Ball's homebred gelding got a perfect stalking trip in third under Jose Ortiz. 

Bluegrass Singer pushed race favorite Masochistic through an opening quarter in :22.04 and a half-mile in :44.35. As the front two reached the final turn, Ortiz let Limousine Liberal roll up three wide and he took command for good at the head of the lane.

"It was the perfect ride. The wet track—all the stars aligned for us finally," said winning trainer Ben Colebrook. "He showed up today. He's been training great and that last race (third in the grade 3 Commonwealth Stakes April 8) set him up perfect. The seven furlongs is about as far as he wants to go, but we only needed the seven today."

As Limousine Liberal was starting to get leg weary down the middle of the track during the stretch run, Commonwealth Stakes winner Awesome Slew surged up the inside under Joel Rosario. Under left-handed urging from Ortiz, Limousine Liberal had just enough left to instead notch his first graded victory, hitting the wire in 1:23.22 over a muddy, sealed track.

"It was perfect. He broke and I used him a little bit to get my position," Ortiz said. "When I saw (Bluegrass Singer) go with Masochistic, my chances increased a lot, because I was in a good spot. When we entered in the stretch, he responded very well. It was a great training job by (Colebrook). He told me to just try to sit two lengths off Masochistic. That's what I did and it worked."

Tom's Ready ran strongly on the outside to get third and Solid Wager finished fourth. The Truth or Else rounded out the top five, while grade 1 winner Masoschistic faded to 13th.

Bred in Kentucky by Katherine and Mike Ball, Limousine Liberal earned his fourth win from 14 starts and now has $771,120 in earnings. He is out of the In Excess mare Gift of Gab and paid $28.40, $12.80, and $8.80 across the board.