City Chapel is a longshot claim that we've been following since late August, and wrote about most recently on October 10; so I won't recap his full story again here. On Saturday, City Chapel made his third start for owner and trainer Victor Trujillo, going to post less than two weeks after his previous start (marking only the third time in City Chapel's career that he's raced on such short rest).
Saturday's contest was a step up in class for City Chapel; for while it was still a claiming race with the same price tag as his prior start ($8k-$7k), Saturday's race was unrestricted; whereas City Chapel's previous starts since breaking his Maiden had been in races open only to horses with just one lifetime victory (NW2L). The race was run at a distance of eight furlongs over some California grass.
City Chapel went to post at final odds of 11.1-1. He broke third, was never more than three lengths back of the leader, and took the Place, paying $7.80 / $3.60 (not to mention pairing up with Post Time Favorite Janero (1.4-1) to form a Quinella that paid $23.40 for every two dollars wagered).
City Chapel's portion of the purse for taking the Place was $2,400; thus making for a total of $4,710 in purse money collected by Trujillo for the three starts this gelding has made for his barn since being purchased for $4,000 on August 26 (and since Trujillo is both trainer and owner, he has significantly fewer people with whom he needs to split these funds).
So in less than two months time Trujillo has taken a horse that ran out of the money at odds of nearly 30-1 in a $4k claiming race, and has twice in a row gotten that same horse to finish second for a claiming price double that for which he was purchased. Quite an achievement for Trujillo, and one for which he can be justifiably proud.
For those interested, the Equibase chart for Saturday's race is available here, while the DRF version of events may be viewed here.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo
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