A Tough Beat

A tough beat today with Hero Status, who endured a poor trip and fell short narrowly at the wire to finish second to the upset winner, Go Joe Won.

In amongst and behind horses while racing down the backstretch of the one-mile dirt race, Hero Status never looked at ease with the position that he was put in by jockey Edwin Maldonado. The trip was in contrast to what trainer Mark Glatt had hoped to see as he told Maldonado he wanted him to be “aggressive” out of the gate, but he was not amongst the early leaders, even though the field was tightly bunched.

After a quarter mile in 22.85 seconds and half in 47.04 was run, Hero Status was set down to do some serious running, and he responded quickly, but was floated four-wide into the stretch, losing precious ground, while Go Joe Won was surging forward with the lead at the rail. Hero Status kept digging in, giving it his all, but ran out of real estate.

Mark was disappointed with the ride, but proud of Hero Status running so well, despite the adversity, and said: “[Maldonado} put him in a tough position, checking down the entire backside. The plan was to be more forwardly placed and even with the fast pace, he put the horse in an uncomfortable position.”

We will check in with the barn in the coming days to see how Hero Status exited today’s race. We may have lost this battle, but good things are surely ahead for our hard-trying colt.