Mike Maker, who has made it a habit of winning the training title at Kentucky Downs, did it again this meet, continuing his dominance with his record seventh training title at the seven-day boutique meet. Tyler Gaffalione held on to win the riding title. The 28-year-old jockey won his second championship at the track with nine wins from 66 starts. He also had 17 seconds (seven of them in the last two days of the meet) and three third-place finishes.
Maker won 12 races, a meet record. The old record of 10 wins, set by Wayne Catalano in 2013, was broken when Maker won his 11th race on Sunday. Then he broke his own record on Wednesday when Intrigue (Into Mischief) won the closing-day opener.
“That's a good thing, it doesn't happen very often,” Maker, a man of few words, said with a smile. “All kidding aside, it has been a fabulous meet. The way I look at it, Kentucky Downs has been about 10% of my business the last, seven, eight years. Cram that 10% into five days for years, that is pretty remarkable.”
Four of Gaffalone's wins came on horses trained by Maker. He gave credit to his agent, Matt Muzikar, for getting him on the right horses.
“I am very proud of this accomplishment,” he said. “A lot of the credit goes to the horsemen bringing their horses over here ready to run. The horses really showed up, big time. It's such a tough meet and you had to have everything go your way.”
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