The Good Life takes them all the way in the G1 Hopeful, NYRA Photo
Keith McCalmont
The Good Life made his stakes debut a winning one with a powerful frontrunning performance under the Spa’s leading rider Manny Franco in Sunday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Spendthrift Farm Hopeful, a seven-furlong sprint for juveniles, at Saratoga Race Course.
Trained by dual Eclipse Award-winner Brad Cox for WinStar Farm, First Go Racing and CHC, Inc., the Life Is Good colt went to post as the 5-2 mutuel favorite on the back of an impressive debut maiden score on July 18 here. On Sunday, he provided Franco with his 70th win of the meet and his second graded score of the day after the rider took the Grade 3 Prioress in Race 4 aboard Mashallah to clinch his first Angel Cordero, Jr. riding title.
“This is the cherry on top,” said Franco, who captured the Grade 1 DraftKings Travers here last weekend with the Cox-trained Leading Change. “We knew this horse is a good horse, a nice horse, he just needed to run this kind of race to prove it. We were high on him, and he proved it.
“I didn’t expect to be on the lead to be honest, but the way he breaks, I got the one hole, so I’ve got to go with the flow,” Franco added. “He broke on top, I say, ‘I outbroke the other horses,’ so I went on with him. I was comfortable and happy with the way he was doing it.”
The Good Life broke towards the rail from the inside post and showed the way through splits of 22.71 seconds and 45.40 over the fast main track with the Kendrick Carmouche-piloted maiden Mystrix tracking from second position followed by Grade 3-Sanford winner Booked, who broke a step slow and rushed up into a ground-saving third under Ricardo Santana, Jr.
The Good Life was traveling in-hand through the turn and spun the field into the lane with good energy, finding another gear and spurting away from his rivals with a couple of right-handed reminders from Franco to score by four lengths in a final time of 1:24.08.
Cox said he was pleased with the effort from The Good Life.
“At the three and a half, I was just kind of watching everybody else,” Cox said. “Obviously, we were on the lead, everybody looked like they were kind of knuckling down on their horse, so I thought that was a good sign. Turning for home, looked like we had some horse, and he responded down the stretch.”
Franco, who won four races on the card, said he was equally impressed by the young colt.
“He’s got stamina. In the gallop out, he kept going forward. He’ll go further than that,” Franco said.
Mystrix turned back the outside run of Booked to complete the exacta with Lifesong, Midnight Still, Flight Command, and High Official rounding out the order of finish. Constant Force was a late vet scratch as the field approached the starting gate.
Carmouche was full of praise for the Danny Gargan-trained Mystrix, who scratched in favor of this spot from Saturday’s opening race won impressively by U.S.S. Valor, who earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure – the fastest number for a 2-year-old this year.
“He broke a step slow, but after that I put him into the race. I thought where I was sitting was very perfect,” Carmouche said. “Somebody had to go press [The Good Life] a little and see what we could do about the race. As you could see, that horse was much the best. I had my horse in a good spot. Today, I was second best. I think with a little more ground underneath him he will be a better horse.”
Cox said he will consider a pair of “Win and You’re In” qualifiers for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for The Good Life, including the 1 1/16-mile Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity on October 3 at Keeneland or the one-turn mile Grade 1, $500,000 Champagne on the same day at Belmont Park.
“We’ll let him tell us, he’s a fast horse,” Cox said. “Obviously, this was a huge win. We’ll see how he comes out of it and maybe look at the two-turn race at Keeneland [Breeders’ Futurity] or the one-turn Champagne.”
Bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm, The Good Life banked $165,000 in victory while remaining perfect through two starts. He returned $7.14 for a $2 win bet.
Live racing resumes Monday at Saratoga for Closing Day of the summer meet with a 12-race card featuring the $200,000 Funny Cide in Race 10 and the $200,000 Gio Ponti in Race 11. First post is 11:30 a.m. Eastern.
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