NEWS
Winchester aims for repeat Bowling Green win
Posted: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 3:56 PM
WINCHESTER
PhotosByZ.com/Thoroughbred Times
by Steve Bailey
Multiple Grade 1 winner Winchester will shoot for his third win of the season as he tackles up to ten challengers in the $150,000 Bowling Green Handicap (G2) on Saturday on the inner turf course at Belmont Park.
The five-year-old Theatrical (Ire) horse won the Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap (G1) in June at Belmont, besting dual champion Gio Ponti by a half-length. Trained by Christophe Clement, he enters the 1 3/8-mile turf race off a third-place finish in the Betfair / TVG United Nations Stakes (G1) on July 3 at Monmouth Park.
Standing in Winchester’s path are a handful of graded stakes winners trying to get back to their top forms.
Three-time Grade 1 winner Grand Couturier (GB) will try to snap a six-start winless skid since winning last year’s Bowling Green by two lengths over Winchester.
The seven-year-old Grand Lodge horse, a two-time winner of the Sword Dancer Invitational Stakes (G1), is unplaced in each of his four starts this season, most recently finishing sixth of nine in this year’s Sword Dancer.
Interpatation is another Grade 1 winner trying to snap a prolonged winless stretch in the Bowing Green. The eight-year-old Langfuhr gelding won the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational Stakes (G1) last October and has not placed in five subsequent starts for trainer Robert Barbara.
Also entered are Grade 3 winner Al Khali, who finished third behind Telling and Bearpath in this year’s Sword Dancer on August 14 at Saratoga Race Course in his most recent outing; and Brazil’s 2008 champion three-year-old colt Jeune-Ture (Brz), who finished eighth of nine in the United Nations in his first start off a five-month layoff for trainer Paulo Lobo.
Steve Bailey is deputy news editor of Thoroughbred Times
