Fair Grounds: Beverly Park’s 15th win closes the curtain on his amazing 2022 campaign

By Joe Kristufek —-

Photo: Hodges Photography

New Orleans, La (January 1, 2023) – At the conclusion of Sunday’s action, trainer Bret Calhoun holds a 19-12 lead over four-time champion Brad Cox in the Fair Grounds standings. A native of Dallas, Texas, Calhoun has landed in the top ten of the Fair Grounds standings 16 consecutive years and he finished as the runner-up three times (most recently in 2014-15), but with nearly three months left in the current stand, does his barn have the ammo to hold the advantage?

“Coming into this meet we had a bunch of Louisiana-breds at the Copper Crown training center waiting to run,” Calhoun said. “They were ready to run and had conditions. The horses from Kentucky, some of them weren’t quite ready when we ran them back, and some of them weren’t quite good enough in the spots we were running them in there. We had a tough summer, but saved conditions and came down here and things are going well.”

Led by Jack Hammer and Free Drop Maddy with two apiece, Calhoun has won ten of his 19 races with Louisiana-breds, and he’s already broken eight maidens at the meet.

Calhoun’s first Fair Grounds win came in 1996, and 559 of his 3,469 career victories have come in New Orleans.

“Bret is off to an awfully good start at the meet,” said Chester Thomas of Allied Racing Stables, one of Calhoun’s top clients. “We’ve got a couple seconds that we are hopeful can turn to wins. Bret and Reylu (leading jockey Gutierrez) are on fire, we are just happy to be a part of it.”

Beverly Park’s 15th win closes the curtain on his amazing 2022 campaign

While running at his 14th track in 2022 alone, Built Wright Stable’s Beverly Park put an exclamation point on his extraordinary year with an authoritative victory in Fair Grounds third race on Saturday. Remarkably, that $5,000 starter allowance event marked the 30th start of the season for this newly turned 6-year-old gelding, since Twins Miracle ran 33 times, winning just once, in 2016. With the next closest being eight, his 15 wins in 2022 far exceed any other runner. It is the most wins any horse has had in a single year since Rapid Redux won 19 in 2011.

After winning a $5,000 (nw2) claimer at Belterra Park on July 8 of 2021 by 15 lengths, Beverly Park was claimed by Cash for $12,500 in his follow-up start, which produced another dominate victory.

“He’s definitely an iron horse and probably the horse of a lifetime,” Cash said. “He travels well. He’s just a fun horse. I just happened to grab on to his coattails while he was going by and he’s pulled me along with him.”

Competing almost exclusively in starter allowance races for the better part of the last 16-plus months, Beverly Charge has posted a 21 wins from 38 starts for Cash, banking nearly $500,000 in the process.

“The (starter allowance) condition that he’s been eligible for helps,” Cash explained. “He’s got a great personality. He’s happy. He bounces to the track, bounces back. He’s as sound as any horse has ever been. We’ve never had to do any work on him whatsoever.”

Now that the calendar has turned to 2023, has Beverly Park lost his best friend – the starter allowance condition?

“A lot of racing secretary write starts based on the calendar year, but others go by the month they last started for that tag when determining eligibility,” Cash said. “There won’t be as many opportunities of this kind, but they are out there and we will find them.”

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About Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots

Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, one of the nation’s oldest racetracks, has been in operation since 1872. Located in New Orleans, LA, Fair Grounds, which is owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ Global Select Market: CHDN), also operates a slot-machine gaming facility and 15 off-track betting parlors throughout Southeast Louisiana. The 151st Thoroughbred Racing Season – highlighted by the 110th running of the Louisiana Derby – will run from Nov 18, 2022 through March 26, 2023. More information is available online at www.fairgroundsracecourse.com.

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