50-cent bet on Sunday's Ellis Park turf stakes results in a track-record payout
HENDERSON, Ky. — When Sunday’s all-stakes Pick Four paid a track-record $85,939.92 for a 50-cent bet, you know it wasn’t business as usual at the RUNHAPPY Meet at Ellis Park.
For a pair of young female jockeys, it was exceptional business as 26-year-old apprentice Gage Holmes won the $100,000 Centennial Distaff Turf Mile on Henrietta Topham and 27-year-old Mickaelle Michel of France two races later captured the finale on Gray’s Fable in the $100,000 Henderson Turf Mile.
The all-turf stakes sequence kicked off with a horse trained by North America’s all-time win leader — Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen — paying $47.80 as the second-longest shot in the field nine as All in Sync beat older horses in the $100,000 Twin Spires Turf Sprint. Vincent Cheminaud, a 28-year-old Frenchman riding full-time in America this year for the first time, was aboard.
Penny for your thoughts?Ellis Park is first track in the country to pay out to the cent
That was followed by Holmes, who only started riding late last year, earning her first stakes victory aboard Henrietta Topham, the 4-year-old filly paying $21.44 in her third straight win.
Creative Credit ($24.16) and veteran jockey Tommy Pompell subsequently led all the way to take the $100,000 Laguna Distaff Turf Sprint by two lengths over the late-running Grade 2 winner Brooke Marie.
The racing wrapped up with Gray’s Fable ($23.54) and Michel holding off favored Mr Dumas by a neck while both horses wore down the front-running Tut’s Revenge, who finished another head back in third in the capacity field of 12.
A further look
Asmussen’s goal was to get All in Sync on the turf, a mission thwarted but still successful when the colt beat fellow 3-year-olds in the Dade Park Turf taken off the grass. So with the ultimate objective being Kentucky Downs’ $600,000, Grade 2 Franklin-Simpson for 3-year-olds, Asmussen put Ed and Susie Orr’s All in Sync in against older horses, getting the same result and finding out that the colt likes the grass just fine.
“We’re thrilled for the horse and all involved,” said Marissa Short, who oversees Asmussen’s Ellis operation. “He’s kind of evolved between the first stakes and this. He’s changed into a more mature, confident horse.”
All in Sync beat Charcoal by a neck, with Bad Beat Brian another half-length back in third after nosing out 2019 winner Totally Boss.
As an apprentice jockey who hasn’t yet won 50 races (she’s at 28 through Sunday), Gage normally would get a seven-pound weight allowance in Kentucky to encourage trainers to use her. But that doesn’t apply in stakes races. Trainer Geoff Mulcahy acknowledged thinking about switching to a more experience jockey but concluded, “If it’s not the right time to go for a stakes when you’re coming off two wins, when is? And Gage was a part of those two wins.”
Henrietta Topham rallied to out-finish favored Turnerloose by a half-length, with 17-1 pacesetter Touch of Class another neck back in third in the field of nine fillies and mares.
Holmes groomed horses while attending Penn State, where she graduated with degrees in veterinary and biomedical science. After college, she decided she wanted to become a jockey.
“First and foremost, I am just so thankful,” Holmes said. “… I felt like I had a ton of horse underneath me. Turning for home, when everybody started moving, I’m like, ‘OK, here’s your moment.’”
It also was the first stakes victory for the Lexington-based Mulcahy.
Creative Credit, who is trained by Cincinnati-based T.R. Hahn, defeated Elle Z in similar front-running fashion in their last start, Indiana’s Clarksville Stakes. But owner-breeder Richard Finucane said he understood Creative Credit’s odds, given that the 5-year-old mare had never won a race beyond five-eighths of a mile.
“She didn’t know she was 11-1,” he said.
Churchill Downs-based trainer Brian Lynch, who had the first or second choice in all four stakes, came into the Henderson Turf Mile with Gray’s Fable being his last shot to get a winner.
“Obviously he gets along with Mickaelle,” Lynch said. “He’s a very quirky horse, so it was nice to see her display her talents.”
The victory was a big boost for Michel, who has ridden in Europe and Japan and now is working to get entrenched in America. Gray’s Fable was her second North American victory and first stakes.
“I want to prove I can ride and win everywhere — and female riders can do it,” she said. “So, yeah, it’s a really good winner.”
Industry data-keeper Equibase said the Pick 4 payoff of $85,939.92 for a 50-cent wager is the highest at Ellis Park going back to 2002. The 50-cent Pick 5 paid off $18,876.92 for having four of the five winners. The carryover into next Friday's card is $56,630.
This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Ellis Park turf stakes results in track-record $85.9K Pick 4
