Phipps homebred Bakers Bay has reinvented himself as a shorter-distance runner and will face a tough challenge in the $350,000, grade 3 Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday, April 8. At five and a half furlongs over the turf, the race will be the shortest distance race of his career.
After finishing off of the board in stakes action at the ages of 5 and 6 at longer distances, he has been cut back this year to shorter distance races of six-and-a-half furlong races. His pedigree has had success at shorter distances, with his sire More Than Ready as well as his second and third dams each having won multiple graded stakes races at distances of six to seven furlongs.
The Shakertown Stakes is the fourth start of his 7-year-old campaign. He was runner up in a pair of allowance optional claiming races over the all-weather track at Turfway in January and February, earning 93 Beyer speed figures in each. He easily won his March start there, also over the all-weather track, a race that earned him his highest career Beyer of 95. Joe Talamo, his winning jockey last time out, retains the mount for the Shakertown.
Baker’s Bay’s is a seventh-generation Phipps homebred, from the family of La Troienne’s daughter Big Hurry, acquired by Ogden Phipps in 1946 from Col. E.R. Bradley’s Idle Hour Stock Farm. His first four dams—Abaco (Giant’s Causeway), Cat Cay (Pleasant Colony), Cadillacing (Alydar), and Relaxing (Buckpasser)—are grade 1 and/or multiple graded stakes winners.
In addition to Bakers Bay’s recent win, Phipps Stable has had some nice wins in the first quarter of the year: Surprisingly (Mastery), a homebred 4-year-old filly, won the G3 Eatontown Stakes; 3-year-old colt Clever Thought (Quality Road), owned in partnership with Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable, broke his maiden at second asking; and, 3-year-old colt Perform, owned in partnership with Woodford Racing, Lane’s End Farm, Ken Langone, and Edward Hudson, Jr., also broke his maiden.
Phipps Stable Fan 