City Man collects third stakes win of 2022 in the Ashley T. Cole Saturday at the Belmont at Big A meeting. Susie Raisher/NYRA Photo.
By Paul Halloran
There is a feeling that permeates horse racing that trainers don’t run good horses often enough. That would not be the case with Christophe Clement and City Man.
Making his sixth start of the year, 13th in the last two years and 24th of his career, the son of Mucho Macho Man stalked and rolled to a three-quarter-length win in Saturday’s $125,000 Ashley T. Cole, a 1 1/8-mile turf stakes for New York-breds at the Belmont at the Big A fall meeting.
“He’s a really nice horse and has been running all year long,” Clement said. “He’s very honest and he’s a fun horse to be around. … I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this. I’m very happy Mr. and Mrs. (Dean) Reeves won it. They have been great supporters of the stable.”
Sent off as the 6-5 favorite, City Man sat third off a pace set by Jerry the Nipper and Advanced Strategy through a half-mile in :47.86. Jockey Trevor McCarthy made his move on the turn, took the lead by the stretch call and hit the wire in a course-record 1:46.95. Sanctuary City was second with Cold Hard Cash third.
“He broke well and I got a great position,” McCarthy said. “We were able to get some nice cover. Coming to the three-eighths pole, I just tipped him out, got him into a good rhythm and he finished up really strong for me.”
City Man, a 5-year-old out of the City Zip mare City Scamper, was bred at Moonstar Farm. A $20,000 weanling at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale, Reeves bought him for $185,000 at the 2019 OBS April sale of 2-year-olds in training. He was in the second crop of Mucho Macho Man, whom Reeves campaigned to a victory in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
City Man, who picked up his seventh win and increased his career earnings to $761,800, won his first graded stakes when he took the Grade 3 Forbidden Apple on the second day of this year’s Saratoga meet. He came back to run second in the Grade 3 Bernard Baruch on Closing Day, less than three weeks before the Ashley T. Cole.
“I just ran him back quickly on 19 days,” Clement said. “Most people don’t do that anymore. I believe if they’re doing well, you should run them.”
And you often get rewarded when you do.
