#US RACING: WATCH SANTIN WIN THE ARLINGTON MILLION AT CHURCHILL DOWNS

VIDEO REPLAY BELOW ARTICLE

One race is not much of a sample to go on when it comes to betting or racing horses. But one race was all it took Saturday afternoon for trainer Brendan Walsh and jockey Tyler Gaffalione to fashion the winning strategy for Santin in the Grade 1 Arlington Million at Churchill Downs.

“The grass, the way it was playing, they really weren’t coming back to you,” Gaffalione said after Santin (2-1) turned a pace-stalking trip into a 1 3/4-length victory in the race that was transplanted from its four-decade home near Chicago. “It was holding very good. We just didn’t want to let that horse get away.”

That horse was Smooth Like Strait (2-1), who could not shake Santin throughout the 1 1/8-mile trip. He and jockey John Velázquez never led by more than a length at any call. When they spun into the five path out of the turn, Gaffalione and Santin used the six path to slingshot into a lead they would not relinquish.

“Good trip,” Velázquez said about his 5-year-old mount. “Good trip. He’d run his race, and the other one ran better than us. We both had to run on the same ground. Whoever liked it better ran better.”

The ground was a major talking point coming into the day, and it remained so afterward. The $10 million turf course that was planted last October could not absorb the wear and tear of the spring meet. After a fatal breakdown June 10, the turf was shut down for the last three weeks before closing day July 4. It was given provisional blessing when the Million was one of only two races allowed on it Saturday.

“I thought Churchill did a great job preparing for today,” Gaffalione said. “It was a very safe course us. We had no issues out there. We were very thankful to them.”

Another jockey described the course as dry and sandy right after the Million. The toteboard and the race chart called it good. By the end of the day, it had a lot of divots from the two races run on it, even in the 24-foot-wide strip that had been preserved just for the Million.

Rather than complain, team Santin seized on it. More than three hours earlier, Gaffalione rode Santin’s stablemate Family Way to a third-place finish in the Beverly D. (G1), which was won by pace-stalking Dalika. That was all Walsh needed to see. He and Gaffalione went to school on how the turf played in that race.

“It kind of made up our mind,” Walsh said. “We just said we’ll have to be aggressive. Look, nobody came from behind in the (Beverly D.), either. It was basically a carbon copy.”