Joe Sharp win #1: Flirting With Time ($31.30) with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. (Coady Media photo)
Bags opening-day wins at KY Downs with Flirting With Time ($31.30), Lucky Speech ($33.58)
By Tim Wilkin
FRANKLIN, Ky.— Trainer Joe Sharp is off and running at Kentucky Downs.
That is on – and off – the track in Franklin, Ky.
Sharp, who makes Kentucky Downs a yearly bullseye, got off to a rousing start as he won a pair of races on Thursday, the first of seven days at the wildly anticipated meet. Sharp’s Flirting With Time (14-1) won the opener by 7 ¾ lengths for owner Stephen Herriage and jockey Brian Hernandez and then took the fourth with Lucky Speech (15-1) for owner Anthony Tate and jockey Edgar Morales.
“Obviously, we aim hard for this meet,” Sahrp said after Lucky Speech was unsaddled. “You have to get lucky; you have to get in, you have to get in the right races. The horses have to make the ship and transition to this track well and, so far, the ones we have run today have checked those boxes. We are elated with the start we have gotten off to.”
Four races into the meet, Sharp has already tied his win total from the 2023 Kentucky Downs meet. He had two wins in 30 starts.
There is a chance that the 39-year-old Sharp celebrated his big day with a run of his own. Or maybe he did it before the start of the 33rd Kentucky Downs meet. Sharp, you see, is a running man.
He said he pounds the pavement to the tune of nine, 10, sometimes 11 miles four days a week.
“I run to stay fit and it’s good mentally and physically,” Sharp said. “It’s a win-win. Really, there is never a time when you can’t exercise because you can run from anywhere. With our business being as demanding as it is and always having to be at the barn and be available, it’s kind of nice to bring your running shoes and shorts and go from anywhere.”
Sharp said he got into running about three years ago, following a pair of brain surgeries. He said he put on weight during that time and running helped him shave off the extra pounds.
He said he covers his ground in about an hour and 15 minutes. Seeing as he deals with training horses, that helps him with his motivation when he does his own road work.
“It does get into your psyche sometimes when I feel tired,” he said. “I am asking horses to push themselves, so I have to push myself. I think about all kinds of things when I run.”
Heading into Thursday, he was almost assuredly thinking about doing some good at Kentucky Downs.
Sharp, his wife, former jockey Rosie Napravnik, and their two boys live outside of Louisville. Sharp makes no secrets that he wants to do well at Kentucky Downs, a place he targets every year.
He spent a bulk of the summer at Saratoga and was counting down the days until he could get back home to a meet he loves.
“Everything in Saratoga is very formal and intense,” Sharp said. “You get down to Kentucky Downs and it’s a totally laid-back environment. The horses respond well to it, I respond well to it. It’s a breath of fresh air being there.”
That air must have felt even fresher after getting the two wins on opening day.
With six days of racing left in the meet, Sharp has plenty of horses still to race and plenty of miles still to run.
“We hope so,” Sharp said with a smile about more victories. “We just want to enjoy the day.”
