If there is a sure thing in horse racing, it’s Muscle Hill. The compact son of Muscles Yankee–Yankee Blondie could set a single season’s earnings record with a victory in the Breeders Crown, topping $2.4 million for the year. He hasn’t lost a race since July of 2008, weaving a 19-race win streak in the process, and is 11-for-11 this year.
Greg Peck, trainer of Muscle Hill notes the role that history plays in elevating the importance of the colt winning the Breeders Crown.
“You’d like to win it because it’s going to be his last race,” he says. “You’d like the curtain to close on a winning note. Also, the last two years, the three year-old colt champions, Dewey and Donato [Deweycheatumnhowe and Donato Hanover] didn’t do it [win the Breeders Crown]. We’d like to be able to get it done.”
Peck is not morose about the colt’s impending last race and his departure for the breeding shed.
“I’ve said all along, it’s time,” he said. “He’s shown what a champion he is and I look forward to training his yearlings. The sooner he gets to the breeding shed, the sooner the yearlings will come along.”
Aside from his speed, as co-holder of the all age World Record of 1:50.1, Peck cites “gait and intelligence” as the two qualities he most hopes Muscle Hill will pass on to his progeny.
“He’s very intelligent,” he notes. “He’s so controllable and push button. You can almost literally push a button and he’ll do whatever you ask him to do. He has a very light mouth, you can do whatever you want to do with him.”
Willing to take on Muscle Hill is Triumphant Caviar, recent winner of the Keystone Classic and Old Oaken Bucket and Neighsay Hanover, who won the Bluegrass at Lexington and the Simcoe at Mohawk earlier this year. Neighsay Hanover has the next highest earnings in the field of ten, with $419,540 in 19 starts this year.
Post positions will be drawn at the press conference at Woodbine on Tuesday, October 20, hosted by former Houston Oiler and Edmonton Eskimo Warren Moon.
(Hambletonian Society)