Lexington, Ky.

There was a sigh of relief that came with one of those
had-it-all-the-way reactions to odds-on favorite Hit Show winning by three-quarters
of a length Saturday in the Grade 2, $350,000 Fayette Stakes on closing day at
Keeneland.

“He can wait on horses, really,” jockey Florent Géroux said
afterward. “I don’t think he’s a horse who’s going to win by open lengths.”

Click here for Keeneland entries and results.

Maybe it was like one of those games that was closer than
the scoreboard would indicate. Like Géroux said, Hit Show wins narrowly. By a
half-length in the West Virginia Governor’s (G3) two back at Mountaineer. By a
neck last month in the slop of the Lukas Classic (G2) at Churchill Downs.

This time, though, the gray 4-year-old Candy Ride colt bred by Gary
and Mary West and bought privately late this summer by Qatar-based Wathnan
Racing had to fend off 28-1 long shot Bolzy in the autumn-toned, 64-degree
sunshine.

“The horse ran a really good race it looked like to me to
stay on as well as he did,” winning trainer Brad Cox said.

Bolzy, a 5-year-old Gun Runner horse who never got a whiff
of the board in two previous stakes tries for owner Robert Zoellner and trainer
Donnie Von Hemel, was ridden expertly on the lead by Frankie Dettori. Make that
a surprised Frankie Dettori.

“I didn’t see it coming,” he said. “In fairness I thought
they were going to swallow me up. He dug deep and gave me everything he had. …
I guess because it was a long shot, everybody left me, right? Anyway, job done.
I would have taken second this morning, trust me.”

The two-turn, 1 1/8-mile race on the fast main track saw
Bolzy get away smartly from post 4 in the field of eight 3-year-olds and up.
Dettori took him through early fractions of 23.49, 47.46 and 1:12.09.

“When they broke I immediately said to myself, man, I hope
Florent realizes Frankie is sending,” Cox said. “It looked like he was sending
pretty hard there so there would be an honest pace, but the horse ran a really
good race.”

The whole time Hit Show (3-5), working from post 6, bided
his time in sixth place, spotting Bolzy as many as 4 1/2 lengths. It was
business as usual for Géroux.

“He’s a horse who doesn’t necessarily have a ton of early
speed,” he said. “But it’s not completely a lack of speed, either. He just puts
you in a good spot, and he always travels great. You always feel like you’ve
got a lot of horse underneath you. He’s always here when I want him to be.”

It felt like clockwork when Hit Show went four wide to take
the lead in the upper stretch just after Bolzy had gone the first mile in
1:37.66. But instead of the valedictory of a glorified workout, the final
furlong turned into a hammer-and-tong duel with Bolzy persisting to the inside
of Hit Show. It was not until the last 25 yards or so that the issue would be
decided.

“Hit Show, once he hits the lead, he kind of starts getting away
from the other horse, and then he’ll kind of let him come back,” Cox said. “Florent
says once he feels the pressure again, he keeps himself in front. He is a horse
who I do think feels comfortable being around another horse and doesn’t want to
separate himself too much.”

Hit Show finished with a time of 1:50.33 and paid $3.58,
$2.64 and $2.34. Second-place Bolzy returned $14.40 and $7.14 and finished four
lengths better than third-place Uno Mas Bourbon (15-1), who paid $4.78 to show.

War Campaign (9-2), Heroic Move (13-1), Trademark (7-1),
Howling Time (38-1) and Grand Aspen (5-1) completed the finish in that order.
Tumbarumba and Rattle N Roll were scratched before Saturday’s card began.

After his 3-year-old campaign got rolling with a victory in
the 2023 Withers (G3) and a runner-up result in the Wood Memorial (G2), Hit
Show did not have a top-three finish for more than a year. He was fifth in the
Kentucky Derby, fourth in the Belmont, fifth in the Jim Dandy (G2) and sixth in
the Oklahoma Derby (G3).

Cox hit the reset button to start 2024, dropping Hit Show
into a confidence-building, $141,000 allowance race in May at Churchill Downs.
After a seventh-place disappointment in the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap
(G3) came a change of owners and fortune. The victories at Mountaineer and
Churchill followed.

“I still don’t know what happened at Prairie Meadows,” Cox
said. “I loved the way he was training leading up to that. He’s trained well
throughout the summer and fall, and it showed. He’s reeled off three straight
now. He’s a good colt. He’s made over $1 million, and he’s a multiple
graded-stakes winner, and proud of what he was able to accomplish today.”

With Saturday’s win, Hit Show lifted his record to 14: 7-1-0,
and the $208,863 first prize brought his earnings to $1,288,378. Right after the race, Cox used his phone to watch a live feed from Aqueduct, where Tarifa won for him in the Mother Goose (G2). 

While smiling about two victories eight minutes apart, Cox stopped short of declaring Hit Show would try Grade 1
competition again soon. He did mention the Pegasus World Cup Invitational
(G1) in January at Gulfstream Park as a possible goal this winter. Before that
Cox said there might be a Grade 2 race Nov. 29 at Churchill Downs in Hit Show’s
immediate future.

“Maybe the Clark would be the logical spot moving forward,”
Cox said. “But once again we’ll regroup, see how he comes out of it, ship him
back to Churchill tomorrow and go from there.”