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Churchill Downs Press Release: Trainer Pat Byrne likes the turf-to-dirt angle, which is one reason why he entered recent Arlington turf maiden victor Just Move On in Saturday’s $150,000 Iroquois (GIII), run for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles over the Churchill Downs main track.
The Iroquois is the first of 35 races in the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” qualifying series for the 2017 “Run for the Roses.”
The race is also a Breeders’ Cup Challenge: Win and You’re In test for the $2 million Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (GI) on Nov. 5 at Santa Anita.
Owned by Chuck and Maribeth Sandford LLC, the homebred son of Street Boss will make his third career start in the
Iroquois. Just Move On was a close third in his debut in a 5 ½ furlong maiden special weight on Arlington’s turf course. Three weeks later, he stretched out to a two-turn mile on the grass on won by six lengths.
“The horse has a good mind on him and turf to dirt is huge,” Byrne said. The other part of it is that it wasn’t such a disaster training on the Polytrack at Arlington because I think horses coming off of Poly run good on dirt. I think this will set up really well, he’s a nice horse and I’m excited about him so we’ll see what happens.”
Another reason Byrne entered Just Move On in Saturday’s race was his training at Churchill Downs during the spring.
“He always trained well over here,” Byrne said. “The first time at Arlington he ran five-eighths sprinting and he ran good. He just got into some trouble, we probably should’ve won but we wanted to run him long and the only thing was the grass race at a mile. There was a ton of rain. I was impressed with his last eighth of a mile so this is the next logical step and if I’m wrong and he doesn’t like the dirt then we’ll run him back on the grass. I like the spot for him though, he’s trained great so far.”
Byrne went on to speak highly of another 2-year-old in his barn named Silent Decree. Despite still being a maiden in two starts, Byrne mentioned Churchill Downs’ $200,000 Kentucky Jockey Club (GII) on Nov. 26 as a long term goal.
“Hopefully he’s my (Kentucky) Jockey Club horse, but he’s done nothing wrong,” Byrne said. “He’s still a maiden but he ran twice and did nothing wrong, got into some trouble ran third and second. The horse that beat me (Romeo O Romeo) is highly regarded and ran second in the (Arlington Washington) Futurity.”
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