Blue Creek brings strong lake kick to $135K Awad
At 1h38, on October 28, 2023 • By BELMONT@THE BIG A
Upland Flats Racing’s stakes-placed Blue Creek will seek to display his late-running tactics en route to a stakes triumph in Saturday’s 11th edition of the $135,000 Awad for juveniles going 1 1/16 miles over the inner turf at Belmont at the Big A.
The dark bay son of freshman stallion Demarchelier enters from a third-place finish at 22-1 odds in the 1 1/16-mile Laurel Futurity on September 30 over good turf at Laurel Park for trainer Keri Brion. He trailed the 12-horse field by 21 lengths down the backstretch and made a sweeping eight-wide move around the far turn to grab show honors, finishing 5 1/2 lengths behind the victorious Air Recruit.
Brion said Blue Creek should appreciate added ground looking ahead to next year.
“I think he’s one of these horses that hopefully can compete in these longer turf races, I think he’ll be effective there,” Brion said. “He has a really rapid turn of foot when he gets running, so it really all comes down to getting the right trip. When he ran in the stake at Colonial, he got stuck down on the inside and had no room to go anywhere. At Laurel, he circled eight wide, but he came flying. He’s a tricky horse like that. A bit of racing luck is what we need.”
Blue Creek was a $25,000 acquisition at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern Fall Yearling Sale.
