Trendsetter stuns Lexington in $66.68 upset

Saturday’s $398,750 Lexington (G3) featured an eclectic cast of class-climbers, fringe players from the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail, and minor stakes veterans. An overlooked member of the latter category, Trendsetter, jumped up at odds of 32-1 to score a new career high.

Trained by Ben Colebrook, who won Keeneland’s premier race for three-year-old fillies, the Ashland (G1), with Percy’s Bar on opening day, Trendsetter is not nominated to the Triple Crown. The Lexington, as the final stop on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, was worth a moot 20 points to the winner.

Trendsetter was most recently third in the March 21 Rushaway S. on the Jeff Ruby Steaks undercard at Turfway Park. That two-turn debut came on Tapeta. Colebrook thought that he was capable of improving back on dirt, especially at his home track.

“After the race at Turfway, we were looking around and there just wasn’t anywhere to really run him,” Colebrook said. “I know his numbers weren’t stacking up against these horses, but I had a little feeling he could maybe get a piece of it, with the way he’s been training since the last race. 

“I think it’s a big deal training at Keeneland year-round and to have a horse that knows this course and has been here. He kind of is a grinder, so I figured back to long on the dirt was kind of what he wanted to do. He’s just never had a chance to do it.”

Trendsetter vindicated that judgment on Saturday. With Kazushi Kimura back aboard, the Modernist gelding was reserved within striking range of a contested pace.

Corona de Oro sped forward from his rail post, pressed by The Hell We Did through fractions of :23.68, :47.92, and 1:12.12. Brad Cox’s popular grays, the 2.66-1 Ezum and 1.89-1 favorite Confessional, stalked toward the outside, flanking Trendsetter. But Ezum retreated, and Confessional could not maintain his position turning for home.

Trendsetter had all the room necessary to angle out in pursuit of the battling leaders. Skipping past Corona de Oro and The Hell We Did, the longshot opened up by 2 1/4 lengths. Trendsetter clocked 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.51 and rewarded his fans with a $66.68 payout.

Kimura put his lessons from the Rushaway to good use. 

“I learned from his last race at Turfway, he’s always kind of a need-to-keep-pushing horse,” Kimura said. “Since the last race to today, he’s been able to show speed from the gate. I was very comfortable right behind the front horses, and when I swung him out, he responded very beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t say I was surprised,” Colebrook said of the breakout performance. “I thought he was going to run good. I definitely didn’t think that kind of performance was there, but I thought we were going to see some improvement, and if he improved, then he was going to be kind of right there with these horses and get a piece of it.”

Triple Crown nominee The Hell We Did, a son of Authentic and the prolific mare Rose’s Desert, prevailed in his match race with Corona de Oro to take second (10 points) by three-quarters of a length. The Peacock Family’s homebred, whose half-siblings include 2024 Saudi Cup (G1) hero Senor Buscador, was taking a significant step up in class and distance.

“He has only run six furlongs,” trainer Todd Fincher said of the New Mexico shipper, “so we were hoping there would be three or four go to the front, and we could just chill back there, but the pace wasn’t super-fast. He relaxes really well, and he put himself in the race, but he is probably not fit enough for that.

“We are happy with him and he will only improve from here. Next (race), I don’t know. I had envisioned a great race and a win and then go to the Preakness (G1), but that is a long ways away, and we have options.

“I think the next time he goes two turns he will be better. I am thinking of taking him back to (Lone Star Park in) Dallas. That way, he can get on a plane and go anywhere we want to go.”

Fellow Triple Crown nominee Corona de Oro held third (six points) in his stakes debut, followed by I Did I Did (four points for a total of six), Confessional (two points for a total of 17), Ezum, Mister T, Ramblin, and Exhibition Only. Enforced Agenda was withdrawn, and Decisive Win was a vet scratch. 

Midway Racing’s Trendsetter sports a mark of 8-3-1-1, $421,962. The bay won his first two starts sprinting at Colonial Downs last summer, including the restricted Hickory Tree S. Unplaced in a pair of turf sprint stakes at Kentucky Downs and Keeneland, Trendsetter kicked off his three-year-old season with a second in the Turfway Prevue S. He reverted to dirt for the Spectacular Bid S. at Laurel, where he finished a one-paced fourth, before stretching out in the Rushaway. 

Bred by Circle B Family Farm in the Bluegrass, Trendsetter went to his current connections for $130,000 as an OBS April juvenile.

Trendsetter is out of the Astrology mare Suyapa. His pedigree pattern features duplications of A.P. Indy and Quiet American. Astrology and the broodmare sire of Modernist, Bernardini, are both bred on that cross.