Arlington
racing fans may be unfamiliar with conditioner Kellyn Gorder, but among the
horses he trained as yearlings and early in their 2-year-old seasons was last
year’s Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, last year’s Belmont Stakes winner
Drosselmeyer and the 2009 Dubai World Cup winner Well Armed.
That was when Gorder worked
for WinStar Farm, but for the last three years the 44-year-old native of Worthington,
Minnesota, has been out on his own and
brought two interesting 3-year-old fillies to Arlington
this summer. Both of them made their trips worthwhile by visiting the
winner’s circle.
One of them, Joe Allen’s All
for Georgia,
broke her maiden here Aug. 26 after making her only other start last May in
France. She was considered by Gorder as a possibility for Saturday’s
Grade III Pucker Up Stakes before the trainer decided she needed more
experience.
The other one, Dreamfields
Farm’s Maid of Heaven, broke her maiden over firm going at Churchill July 2,
came to Chicago to win over Arlington’s grass course Aug. 6 on a day it was
rated “good” and will now be coming back to contest Saturday’s 47th renewal of
the $100,000 Pucker Up as the last stakes race of Arlington’s 2011
season. The local season brings down the curtain on its 86-day meeting
Sept. 25.
Dreamfields Farm,
incidentally, is the nom-de-course of Hall of Fame jockey Steve Cauthen, but
Gorder was not sure Thursday morning if Cauthen would be able to attend
Saturday’s headline attraction.
“I’ve kind of had Maid of
Heaven on the radar for the Pucker Up all along,” said Gorder, who grew up on
the racetrack, graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a B.A. degree in
animal science, rode briefly on the Nebraska circuit, and worked for Hall of
Fame trainer Jack Van Berg for a number of years before moving to Lexington,
Ky., 20 years ago.
“This filly has been improving
throughout the summer,” Gorder said, “and I feel she will love the extra
(nine-furlong) distance of Saturday’s race. She had every excuse to get
beaten in that last race at Arlington.
She got in a lot of trouble. She got bottled up behind horses and had to
tap on the brakes a few times, but she still finished very well and got up in
time even though she was only going a mile.”