Norfolk Stakes to Buck Trout’s Liking

The script didn’t make it to air-time. Just when John and Betty Mabee’s horses were about to gobble up the Oak Tree weekend, the maiden Buck Trout foiled their heavily favored Daring General in the Norfolk Stakes on Sunday, winning the $200,000 race by a half-length and paying $45.

Daring General, second to Worldly Manner in the Del Mar Futurity, was the 4-5 favorite. He was last leaving the gate, trailed by 10 lengths down the backstretch and settled for third place, three lengths behind Eagleton, the second-place finisher.

Before the Norfolk, the Mabees were celebrating Excellent Meeting’s win Saturday in the Oak Leaf and undefeated Magical Allure’s sixth consecutive win in the $183,800 Ladies’ Secret Breeders’ Cup Handicap earlier Sunday.

Buck Trout set a mutuel-payoff record for the Norfolk, which was first run in 1970. The Pennsylvania-bred colt races for owner Heinz Steinmann and trainer Mike Harrington, who outbid Bob Baffert and Samantha Siegel to buy him for $220,000 in a Maryland yearling sale.

“This is the year of the fish,” Harrington said, referring to Real Quiet, the colt known as “The Fish,” who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

After running third in June in his first start, Buck Trout was sidelined because of colitis before running second at Fairplex Park last month.

Harrington did not sound like the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, on Nov. 7, is in the cards for Buck Trout. “We had to push him to get him this far,” he said, “and it would be another push to make the Breeders’ Cup.”

Because of the dominant Sharp Cat, Magical Allure won’t run in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and Daring General’s Juvenile plans are up in the air. Baffert, who trains Excellent Meeting and Magical Allure, won the $454,800 Alcibiades at Keeneland on Sunday with Silverbulletday, and she will go against Excellent Meeting in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.