FRANKLIN, Ky.— The $400,000 FanDuel Tapit isn’t necessarily a race you want your horse to win twice in a row – because it means he hasn’t won a stakes on the calendar year since his first Tapit score. But it’s a good race to have as an option when he fits that restriction for the stakes.
And so Paulo Lobo is running the Brazilian-bred 6-year-old In Love back in the stakes he won a year ago at the FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs. The race served them well last year, when In Love and jockey Alex Achard won a division of the Tapit (then known as the TVG Stakes) and parlayed that into victory a month later in the Grade 1 Keeneland Turf Mile.
Since then, In Love finished a respectable seventh (beaten only a total of 3 1/4 lengths after being bumped at the start) in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar. He was eighth in both his 2022 starts, the first time by less than three lengths in Keeneland’s Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile and then by 6 1/4 in New York’s Grade 1 Manhattan at 1 1/4 miles.
“He’s doing very well. I’m very happy,” Lobo said. “… I think he ran very well in the Maker’s Mark. He finished very close. It wasn’t Achard’s fault, but the horse stayed inside (after breaking from the rail), and that day inside wasn’t good. But I was happy with his effort. Then we tried the mile and a quarter because he has a very strong bottom pedigree for the distance. But I think he didn’t like the distance.”
In Love could have run in Saturday’s $1 million WinStar Mint Million (G3).
“You never know, but we were trying for an easier spot for him,” Lobo said. “He has run twice this year and he has not won, and we’re trying to get his confidence back.”
The Keeneland race, now the $1 million Coolmore Turf Mile, is a target, “but he needs to deliver a very good race Thursday for that to happen,” Lobo said.
By Jennie Rees – Kentucky Downs Press Release
Photo: In Love winning last year’s TVG Stakes under Alex Achard (Coady Photography)
