Grand Sonata storms home in the Kentucky Turf Cup (Courtney Snow/Past The Wire)
By Tim Wilkin – Kentucky Downs
FRANKLIN, Ky.— One of these days, Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher thought, Grand Sonata was going to win one of these big races.
That day came Saturday when the 5-year-old horse stormed down the inside of the Kentucky Downs course and won the 33rd running of the Grade 2, $2 million FanDuel TV Kentucky Turf Cup for 3-year-olds and up.
“He is a horse that has knocked on the door on numerous occasions,” Pletcher said by phone from New York.
Before Saturday, Grand Sonata, owned by bred by Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, had lost seven straight starts, six of them graded stakes, two of them Grade 1s. In his most recent race, he was fifth, beaten nine lengths in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga on Aug. 24. That was at 1 ½ miles, the same distance as the Kentucky Turf Cup.
Send off at odds of 15-1, Grand Sonata and jockey Tyler Gaffalione laid off the early pace, set by the Mark Casse-trained Get Smokin, last year’s winner of the Turf Cup. After setting fractions of 23.65, 47.53 and 1:11.21, Get Smokin began to fade after getting the mile in 1:34.97.
Grand Sonata began to surge. They moved up on the inside, beating Highway Robber to that spot and then held off the late charge of that rival and jockey Jareth Loveberry and won by a half-length.
“The 10 (Grand Sonata) cut the corner right in front of me at the five-eighths,” Loveberry said.
Grand Sonata set a track record when he was timed in 2:24.93. The beat the old record, set just two days ago, by a horse named Harrow, who ran the mile and a half in 2:24.97 in a claiming race.
Grand Sonata bests the field in the G2 FanDuel TV Kentucky Turf Cup. The Whisper Hill Farm homebred was trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Tyler Gaffalione. #KyDowns pic.twitter.com/ciMcAuANFD
— Kentucky Downs (@KYDownsRacing) September 7, 2024
Grand Sonata returned $32.78.
“He got a beautiful trip today,” Pletcher said. “He and Tyler have always gotten along really well, and it was great for him to have that breakthrough win.”
“I broke his maiden, I won two stakes at Gulfstream, I won an allowance race at Saratoga on him,” Gaffalione said. “He’s just a real cool horse. He’s just had a lot of bad luck and rough trips, but, today, everything opened up when we needed it, and he finished the job well.”
Highway Robber, the second choice in the wagering at 4-1, finished a length in front of Tawny Port, who was third.
“You don’t know whether to be happy with running second or disappointed he didn’t win,” Highway Robber’s trainer Brian Lynch said. “I haven’t digested that yet.”
Pletcher said there were a couple reasons why he decided to send Grand Sonata to Kentucky.
One was the son of Medaglia d’Oro bounced out of the Sword Dancer in good shape.
Another was that Gaffalione was available to ride. Javier Castellano, who had ridden Grand Sonata in his last three starts, was injured at Saratoga last week.
“We kind of thought, ‘you know what? Maybe we’ll take a chance and run him back in a couple weeks,” Pletcher said. “I mentioned to Todd Quast (general manager of Whisper Hill Farm), ‘what do you think about running him back in a couple weeks?’ He said they were all for it if the horse was doing well. That was kind of the deciding factor.”
Grand Sonata got his first win of 2024 in his fifth start. Overall, he has four wins in 14 starts on grass for his career.
The Turf Cup win was a “Win and You’re In” for the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar in November.
“I guess we have to put that on the radar for sure,” Pletcher said. “If we were to do something between now and then, I don’t know. I’ll talk to the connections and come up with a game plan.”
Integration, the even-money favorite, finished fourth and was followed by Anglophile, Cathkin Peak (IRE), Get Smokin, King Curlin and Balladeer. The Aidan O’Brien-trained Chief Little Rock, who was the 4-1 third choice at the time, was a late veterinarian scratch at the gate.
