Photo: Lauren King
By Sarah Mace
Making his fifty-first lifetime start Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Tropical Turf Handicap at Gulfstream Park West, Aliyu Ben J Stable’s Lubash (Freud), a 9-year-old homebred and the reigning New York-bred male turf champion, was able to put one more in the win column.
The outright winner of the Tropical Turf Handicap in 2014, Lubash was second across the line this year, but his number was justifiably put up by the stewards.
In the early stages of the 1 1/6-mile turf contest, Lubash sat off the pace with only one horse beaten of eight, but picked things up rounding the far turn and began to circle the field. Angling out five wide at the head of the lane, in midstretch he only had Rose Briar left to pass.
Rose Briar ducked out abruptly multiple paths in the final sixteenth, and Lubash, who was in an active drive and closing, had to check hard and lost momentum. He finished 1 1/4 lengths behind the erratic horse before being promoted to first.
Jockey Joe Bravo said after the race, “It’s a shame, I don’t know if Trevor’s horse [Rose Briar] spooked from the inside or what, but he came out a long way and we were impeded.”
Continued Bravo, “I’m glad everything worked out OK today. Lubash is a classy old warrior. He’s a New York-bred but he wins anywhere.”
Lubash now has eighteen career victories, topped by 12 stakes scores, nine seconds and five thirds. He has bankrolled $1,488,139.
Although trainer Christophe Clement also had mixed feelings about getting the win via a DQ, ultimately, he came down on the side of the notion that “a win is a win.”
Said Clement, “I really don’t like to win a race that way because I don’t like that. Nevertheless, I’m thrilled for the horse. He’s a wonderful horse. he’s nine years old. He overcame me for many years, which is great. I don’t like to win a race that way, but we’ll take it.”
Clement is uncertain as to what the future holds for the champ. “I’m not sure (what’s next). The idea was to retire him, but it’s hard to retire a horse that just won a Grade 3. It will be up to the owner.”
Lubash was trained at three and four by James Ryerson, for whom he won his first three stakes victories (the NYSS Cab Calloway Division, open Fifth Marine Stakes and open Monarch’s Maze).
Moving to the Clement Barn in 2012, his career has been nothing short of remarkable. Year-in and year-out (with breaks for the winter scheduled in), he has been in the thick of the ultra-competitive New York-bred turf male division, knocking heads with the likes of Kharafa and King Kreesa. His forays into open company have also been successful. Lubash especially relishes firm turf, which is why Clement has brought him twice to Gulfstream Park West this time of year.
Lubash’s 12 stakes victories are topped by the Grade 3 Fort Marcy (2013) and the pair of victories in the Grade 3 Tropical Turf Handicap (2014 and 2016). In the New York-bred ranks he has won, among other stakes, the West Point at Saratoga twice (2012 and 2015) and the Ashley T. Cole twice (2012 and 2014). In 2015 he set a new course record for 1 1/16 miles in 1:39.08.
Foaled at Carapan Farm, Lubash is the most successful offspring of Nasty Cure, a stakes-placed six-figure earner by Cure the Blues ($153,122). who has produced five multiple winners. Her stakes-placed New York-bred Netcong by Meadow Flight started 87 times and banked $327,924. Her most recent reported foal is a yearling full-brother to Lubash.
