Runaway Ghost, Hustle Up Have Fincher Looking Forward

[Wandering Eyes]

A year ago, Joe Peacock’s Runaway Ghost (Ghostzapper) earned a spot in the GI Kentucky Derby with a win in the GIII Sunland Derby, but a chance at the roses vanished when the homebred colt suffered a hairline fracture to his shin in mid-April. Following surgery and plenty of time to recuperate, Runaway Ghost is back with trainer Todd Fincher and is poised for a big 2019 campaign. He came back from 10 months on the sidelines to win the six-furlong Ft. Bliss S. Feb. 2 and added a 1 1/2-length tally in the 1 1/16-mile Curribot H. at Sunland Sunday (video).

“It looks like he came out of the race very well,” Fincher said Tuesday morning. “We will get him back up on his feet, give him a work and start looking for a place to go. We might stay here, but it might be time to venture elsewhere with him. He’s a really nice horse and we’re looking forward to him having a great year.”

Fincher’s original plan for Runaway Ghost didn’t include the quick three-week turnaround.

“I was dead set on not running him in it [the Curribot], but the horse just kept acting like he had come out of the race so great and he kept training light’s out,” Fincher said. “So I made the decision to go ahead and run him. Even though he was telling me he was going to give me his best effort, I’ve been around long enough to know that when a horse runs that hard off a long layoff, it takes them a while to recover. He ran a great race–probably not his best–but he wasn’t lying to me. He was ready to go again. It’ll be a minimum of five weeks before his next race. That was a little risky, what we did, but I was just listening to the horse.”

Fincher trained Runaway Ghost’s dam Rose’s Desert for Peacock and has two of the his siblings in the barn. The mare’s 3-year-old Sheriff Brown (Curlin) looked to be following in his half-brother’s footsteps when finishing second, beaten only a head by ‘TDN Rising Star’ Nitrous (Tapit), in the Jan. 27 Riley Allison Derby.

“He was turning out to be a really nice horse, but he also had a little shin issue,” Fincher said of the bay gelding. “His is pretty minor, but it has taken him out of everything. We could press on and end up hurting him, so we’re doing the right thing by that horse, as well. He’s going to have a great future. He’ll come back strong next fall.”

Rose’s Desert’s 2-year-old daughter Our Iris Rose (Ghostzapper), a full-sister to Runaway Ghost, turned in a three-furlong work in :38.60 (15/19) at Sunland Park Feb. 22.

“We just gave her a work before we turn her out,” Fincher said. “There is nothing wrong with her, we’re just going to let her go home and get out in the pasture and grow up. We’ll give her three months off and then we’ll put her back in training and have her ready to run in the fall.”

Asked if he saw any similarities between the siblings, Fincher  said, “Ghost and Sheriff Brown have no similarities whatsoever–different builds, different attitudes. Everything is different other than they both have shown a ton of talent. Maybe the sister might be more similar to Runaway Ghost, real quiet and just does whatever you ask her to do and looks more like him.”

With Sheriff Brown on the sidelines, Fincher still looks set to have a representative in this year’s Sunland Derby, which will offer a purse of $800,000 and 50 qualifying points into the Kentucky Derby when it is run Mar. 24. He trains Hustle Up (Abstraction) on behalf of Dale F. Taylor Racing, LLC., Bobby McQueen and Suzanne Kirby. The gelding is now a four-time stakes winner after his wire-to-wire victory in Sunday’s Mine That Bird Derby (video).

“Hustle Up could go straight into the Sunland Derby if everything goes well,” Fincher said. “I’m guessing the owners would like a ticket to the Kentucky Derby. So we’ll play it by ear on that, but that’s probably the next step for him. He came out of the race health-wise in great shape, but he was a little tired. It took a little out of him. So we’ll evaluate and make that decision with him.”

Hustle Up, who gave Fincher his 1,000th career win in the Mine That Bird Derby, has now won eight of 10 starts and lives up to his name with a determined front-running style.

“I know he has the talent,” Fincher said. “He just wants to be in front. If we could ever get him to come off the pace about five lengths, you would see a different horse. He ran a very nice race, don’t get me wrong, but he would be even a better horse if you could get him to just relax the first quarter of a mile.”

Of the chance to win back-to-back Sunland Derbys, Fincher admitted, “That would be great and [Hustle Up] being a New Mexico-bred, it would be unheard of. We’re going to try him. We know we’ll be up against it, there will be a lot of really nice horses coming, but that’s our next step if everything goes right.”

In addition to training Hustle Up, Fincher also co-bred the gelding with Brad King.

“I’m always in partnership on mares,” Fincher said. “I’ve had as many as eight or nine. I probably have five now, somewhere in there. ”

Fincher said there is plenty of upside to the New Mexico racing and breeding program.

“I’m involved in every aspect of horse racing in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s just a great program. It’s very lucrative. They have a lot of incentives to breed in New Mexico. And everything is on a lot lower scale, so financially, it makes a lot of sense. It’s not comparable to Kentucky, obviously, but our breeding program has gotten much advanced in the last 15-20 years. New Mexico has a great breeding program and pretty nice purses all year-round. It makes it all worthwhile financially, which should allow more people to play the game when you have a chance to recoup your money. Everywhere else, it is purely a hobby for the owners and the prestige of it, but more than likely you’re never going to come ahead on the money end, but in New Mexico a lot of people do. So it makes it feasible.”

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