Corey Lanerie aboard Manny Wah after winning last year’s Phoenix (G2) (Keeneland Photo)
Minnesota-Bred Doctor Oscar Steps up in G2 Phoenix
Keeneland Barn Notes
LEXINGTON, Ky.— Corey Lanerie, Keeneland’s sixth leading rider of all time by wins, will secure his 5,000th career victory if Manny Wah wins the $350,000 Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G2) on Friday’s opening day of the Keeneland Fall Meet. The duo won the race last year.
A longtime regular on the Kentucky circuit, Lanerie rode his first winner at Keeneland during the 2000 Fall Meet and was the track’s leading jockey of the 2015 Fall Meet. He has won 13 stakes here, including three victories in the Central Bank Ashland (G1) – aboard Hooh Why (2009), Weep No More (2016) and Sailor’s Valentine (2017) – and the 2015 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity (G1) on Brody’s Cause.
Lanerie, a Louisville resident, also has captured numerous Churchill Downs titles. In 2014, he won the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, which “honors riders whose careers and personal character earn esteem for the individual and the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing.”
Lanerie, 48, grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, a region known for its horse racing culture and the starting point for some of the sport’s most successful riders. His grandfather was a trainer and his father was a jockey and trainer. Lanerie honed his riding skills at informal weekend race meets before launching his professional career in 1991 and winning his first race that year at Evangeline Downs in Louisiana.
Only 37 North American jockeys have won 5,000 races. Among jockeys listed as active, Lanerie is 12th behind Perry Ouzts (7,417 wins as of Oct. 3) and John Velazquez (6,537). The overall leader is Russell Baze (12,842) followed by Laffit Pincay Jr. (9,530), Bill Shoemaker (8,833), Pat Day (8,803) and Ouzts.
Lanerie is named on three mounts Sunday.
Minnesota-Bred Doctor Oscar Steps up in G2 Phoenix
Peter Mattson’s homebred Doctor Oscar is making a house call at Keeneland Friday.
After feasting on Minnesota-breds this summer at Canterbury Park, the 4-year-old son of Shackleford will go postward Friday afternoon in the 171st running of the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G2) going 6 furlongs on the main track.
The race is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race with the winner securing a fees-paid berth in the Qatar Racing Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) to be run Nov. 4 at Santa Anita.
“We have been pointing for this race for a while,” trainer Tim Padilla said. “We wanted to take on the good ones later on after he had some easy races.”
Doctor Oscar comes into the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix off a 6-length victory as the 1-2 favorite in the Crocrock Minnesota Sprint Championship on Sept. 9. Since arriving at Keeneland, Doctor Oscar returned to the work tab with a half-mile breeze of :48 on Monday morning.
Regular rider Alonso Quinonez will be aboard Friday and exit post 9 in a field of 11. Doctor Oscar is the 7-2 second choice.
“I like the outside post,” Padilla said. “He likes to be on the lead or right up there with them. His numbers are right with the horses in there.”
A victory Friday would be the first at Keeneland for Padilla and possibly the first here by a Minnesota-bred in a stakes.
One question: Who is Doctor Oscar?
“He (Mattson) names a lot of his horses after his grandson,” Padilla said. “We’ve had Fisherman Oscar, Commissioner Oscar and before that he had Fireman Oscar.”
Fireman Oscar won the 2020 Minnesota Sprint Championship and earned more than $396,000; the other aforementioned Oscars are maidens. Commissioner Oscar worked a half-mile here this morning.
