Lucky Move, a $30,000 claim by Marshall Gramm’s Ten Strike Racing in April 2019, adds another stakes victory in Empire Distaff Handicap. Janet Garaguso/NYRA Photo.
By Melissa Bauer-Herzog
It isn’t every day that you have both a horse you bred and a horse you claimed in the same stakes race, but that’s exactly how it played out for Ten Strike Racing in Saturday’s $175,000 Empire Distaff Handicap at Belmont Park.
In the end, age and experience won out with 6-year-old Lucky Move – claimed by Ten Strike Racing’s Marshall Gramm last year in Kentucky – coming out the winner and 3-year-old homebred Critical Value struggling through a tough race.
The decision to even put Lucky Move in the race was an audible after trainer Carlos Guerrero was approached by jockey’s agents that included Irad Ortiz Jr.’s agent, Steve Rushing.
“We were looking for a two-other than allowance and jockeys’ agents kept calling my trainer,” Gramm said of the decision to enter the Lookin At Lucky mare. “Once Irad’s agent called we’re like ‘it must not be much of a field’ and looked at it more closely and realized we had to go for the money. We were really hoping for a class relief spot and this turned out to be that spot.”
Lucky Move raced toward the back of the field for much of the 1 1/16-mile race before making her move in the stretch. Gramm said the mare loves to grind out her races and that was exactly what she did to score a 1 3/4-length victory over Mrs. Orb for her second stakes win. Makingcents finished third with defending Empire Distaff winner Ratajkowski fourth and Critical Value last of seven.
Gramm claimed Lucky Move for $30,000 late last April at Churchill Downs. He immediately wanted to take advantage of the mare’s New York-bred status and that move paid off when she won an allowance-optional at Saratoga Race Course two starts later.
“I had been following her for a long time, I’m a huge fan of Lookin at Lucky,” Gramm said. “I’ve owned about a dozen of them, either claimed them or bought them in sales. I claimed her in the spring [with Bentley Combs] and circled the state-bred allowance optional claimer going two turns at Saratoga. The mile and an eighth plays very long [at Saratoga] and I really thought that would be the race. We shipped up and we won that race last summer and I was there. It was great to be in the winner’s circle at Saratoga and then she continued to develop and she’s talented, she can run all day.”
Bred by Maltese Cross Stables and Stonegate Stables, Lucky Move had been sold for $37,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale and spent most of her early career shipping between Louisiana and Kentucky.
Her Saratoga return last season marked just the second time she’d raced in New York to that point. Since then she’s raced primarily in New York, along with starts at Churchill, Parx Racing, Delaware Park and Monmouth Park, and boosted her bankroll to $374,759.
Finishing second in a pair of New York-bred stakes over the winter and third in one last summer at Saratoga, Lucky Move broke through at the stakes level in the Obeah Stakes at Delaware in June. She became the first stakes winner for her six-time winning dam Quiet Mover, who has exclusively produced New York-bred foals since her retirement in 2012 after being claimed by Maltese Cross Stables during her racing career.
Quiet Mover’s youngest is a Tapiture 2-year-old colt named Double David.
While Gramm is leaning toward racing Lucky Move another year, he’s also toying with retiring her depending on how she runs this winter. Her plans currently include trying to go one better in both the Bay Ridge Stakes and Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct – two races she finished second in last winter.
If she does retire and stays in Ten Strike Racing’s breeding program there is a chance she’ll play a part in the next generation of New York-breds with the operation having mares at Keene Stud in Amenia.
“I’ve dropped plenty of foals in New York, it’s an excellent program,” he said. “I have two homebreds running right now that are New York-breds. I only own four or five mares so it’s just an honor to have two homebreds that are participating in the Empire Showcase Day and Lucky Move, who I didn’t breed but I claimed. I’m always looking to claim a New York-bred to run in New York. I love the program, I bred to Central Banker this year and I have another mare up there that’s in foal to Twirling Candy.”
