Claiming Crown Notes: Time for Trouble Could be First 3-time Winner

If it’s time for the Claiming Crown, it’s Time for Trouble. Or so it seems.

The Claiming Crown will be staged at Churchill Downs for the third time in four years on Nov. 15. Entries will be taken tomorrow (Saturday), with the eight Claiming Crown races totaling $1.1 million, not counting the Kentucky-bred purse supplement ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 added to each race.

The now 8-year-old Time for Trouble is one of only four two-time winning horses at the Claiming Crown, which was created in 1999 by the National Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association and the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association. Time for Trouble won the Iron Horse Starter Kent Stirling Memorial in 2022, when Churchill hosted the event for the first time, and repeated in 2023 at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. He missed last year’s edition during a six-month hiatus from racing.

Trainer and co-owner Jeff Hiles says Time for Trouble — for whom he and Paul Parker’s Thorndale Stable prevailed in a 13-way “shake” to acquire the gelding for $8,000 on June 18, 2021— is as good as ever. This year, Time for Trouble has competed in stakes at Oaklawn, Keeneland, Pimlico and Saratoga. Most recently he was sixth of 12 in a Sept. 4 allowance race with an optional claiming price of $80,000 at Kentucky Downs. That day Time for Trouble rallied from 18 or more lengths back to lose by a total of 4 1/2 lengths.

“He’s a horse you don’t have to do a lot with to keep fit,” Hiles said. “Not really a break between races, but we were kind of sitting on him, lightly training him until the last few works. Now we’ve set him down, and he’s doing really well. We lightly raced him this year just to keep him ready to go for this race. This has been our target all year.”

Also on the Claiming Crown card is the Grade 3 Chilukki for fillies and mares, with the overall program expected to offer horse racing’s best wagering opportunities on that day. As part of it, the TwinSpires betting platform is staging an on-line, live-money tournament on the Claiming Crown card, with two seats to the 2026 National Horseplayers Championship to be awarded.

The Claiming Crown races are held under starter-allowance conditions, meaning the horse must have run for a certain claiming price or less in a designated time frame. For most of the races, it’s 2024-2025. However, the Iron Horse is for horses that have raced for $8,000 or less at any time in their career.

No horse has won three Claiming Crown events. The first to win two was Al’s Dearly Bred, who won the Emerald in 2001 and again five years later. Antrim County is the only horse to win two different Claiming Crown races, taking the 2008 Iron Horse and the 2009 Jewel. Royal Posse swept the Jewel in 2015-2016.

The past three racing seasons, Time for Trouble was more likely to run in a stakes, many of them graded, than in an allowance-optional claiming race or a starter-allowance. The son of English Channel has been competitive on dirt (five wins) and turf (four wins), fast tracks and in the slop, at distances from a mile to 1 3/8 miles. In his first start for Hiles and Thorndale Stable after the claim, Time for Trouble set Belterra’s turf-course record for 1 3/8 miles in 2:13.05.

Though he’s run in a lot of marathon stakes, Time for Trouble is 7 for 13, with a second, at the Iron Horse’s 1 1/16-mile distance. That may have something to do with the class break he faced in many of those starts.

“I haven’t seen the eligible horses, but the class is not near what he’s been running against,” Hiles said. “

If Time for Trouble runs well, Hiles would like to try him over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface this winter. And, of course, there’s the 2026 Claiming Crown that returns to Churchill.

“As long as he stays sound and wants to do his job,” Hiles said. “We’re not pushing on him. He’s 8 years old. He knows what he’s doing. It’s not like we’re asking him; he just does it on his own. He gallops out extremely strong, always ahead of everybody else. Even when he’s getting beat, the jockey has a hard time pulling him up.”

Talk about playing with house money! Eight of Time for Trouble’s 11 career wins have been for his current connections, along with about $650,000 of his $695,710 in purses.

“He still has the competitiveness,” Hiles said.

Second on head-bob last year, Keen Cat returns to Rapid Transit

Keen Cat will be at the Claiming Crown Nov. 15 at Churchill Downs with trainer Randy Morse hoping to rectify some unfinished business.

A year ago, Keen Cat was part of an electrifying finish in the Claiming Crown Rapid Transit Starter, resulting in a protracted delay as the placing judges worked out who crossed the wire first. When posted on the tote boards, the cries of joy emanated from Like a Saltshaker’s team. Morse and owner Dale Hopkins were left with the consolation of a horse that ran great but finished second on a head bob.

“It’s always tough when you get beat a zop,” Morse said. “And then that horse got Claiming Crown Horse of the Year.”

Like a Saltshaker isn’t eligible for the 2025 Claiming Crown, but Keen Cat still is. The $125,000, seven-furlong Rapid Transit is for horses that have started for a claiming price of $16,000 or less in 2024-2025.

Throw out Keen Cat’s last race on the grass at Ellis Park, and his form has been excellent. Since being sent to Morse for last year’s Claiming Crown, the gelding has four wins and three seconds in nine starts, the other off-the-board result being a starter-$50,000 race.

“This has been the long-range goal the whole time,” Morse said. “He’s just hard-trying, showing up every time you lead him over there. He’s made quite a bit of money for a claiming horse.”

The 6-year-old, sold for $21,000 at Keeneland’s 2020 September yearling sale, brings a career record of 11-6-6 in 39 starts, earning $390,298 while racing at 16 tracks across 10 states.

Sharp again will be well-represented in the Claiming Crown

Since winning his first Claiming Crown race in 2022, trainer Joe Sharp has been a fixture in the championship-style event for racing’s every-day war horses.

Sharp also won two races in 2023 but was blanked last year. He expects a much better performance Nov. 15, running at least five horses at Churchill Downs, where the Claiming Crown will be run for the third time in four years. Sharp’s overall Claiming Crown record is 3-2-3 in 16 starts, his $435,543 in purse earnings ranks No. 6 all-time, albeit well behind all-time leader Mike Maker’s $2.2 million (to go with a record 22 wins).

The inaugural Claiming Crown Showcase at Virginia’s Colonial Downs — where the top two finishers in each of the eight Aug. 21 prep races earned an automatic spot in the big show at Churchill Downs —was perfectly timed for Sharp. With his three Showcase starters, he came away with two wins (Gilmore and Curlin’s Malibu) and a tough second (Mercy Warren).

Gilmore was made eligible to both the Rapid Transit and the Jewel, but most likely will be entered in the Rapid Transit, Sharp said.

“Seven-eighths is not his best distance, but I think the class will be more fitting, the starter $16,000,” (versus starter $35,000), he said. “The horse obviously has had a fantastic year since we obtained him at the Fair Grounds. Everything we’ve asked him to do, he’s done. Just a really, really fun horse.”

The 5-year-old gelding has won three of seven starts, with two seconds and a third, since being claimed for $30,000 in February. The $250,000 yearling was a graded-stakes competitor at age 3 and into his 4-year-old season, dropping into high-level allowance-optional claiming races and then 13 months ago in a $16,000 claiming race that made him Rapid Transit eligible.

Curlin’s Malibu goes in the 1 1/16-mile Iron Horse off victory in the Colonial Downs qualifier, followed by a third in a tough $25,000 starter in New York.

“So we’re feeling confident in him,” Sharp said.

Glass Slipper-bound Mercy Warren, a $12,500 claim by Sharp a year ago, lost the Colonial Downs qualifier by a neck and then dropped a starter $20,000 by a nose at Keeneland.

“That was a tough beat that day,” Sharp, who also owns the 6-year-old mare, said of the Virginia race. “She made the lead a little early, got a little lost. She’s just been a filly that has been ultra consistent since we claimed her last year. She’s won everywhere — at Fair Grounds, at Churchill, at Saratoga, (almost) at Colonial. She ran another great second at Keeneland last time out. I think the Glass Slipper’s one-turn mile will really suit her well.”

Sharp plans to run both Gilden Cracken and Alternate Reality in the $200,000 Jewel, one of the Claiming Crown’s signature races.

Gilden Cracken comes into the 1 1/8-mile dirt race having run well on turf and dirt this year in quality allowance races and high-level starters. Of Alternate Reality, a $40,000 claim in the spring, Sharp said, “He’s a horse we’ve had two seconds in a row in some pretty tough starters going short. Based on his running style, I think he’ll appreciate the extra distance.”

Sharp could also run Our Liberty Belle in the Tiara at 1 1/16 miles on turf and Swaggish in the Ready’s Rocket Express.

Claiming Crown 2025 is presented by the National HBPA and Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association in conjunction with Churchill Downs and the Kentucky HBPA.