Cordmaker set for return to training
Hillwood Stables’ Cordmaker, unraced since becoming a graded winner in the Feb. 19 General George (G3), is back at Laurel Park with trainer Rodney Jenkins and getting ready to resume his 7-year-old campaign.
Jenkins and owner Ellen Charles sent Cordmaker, a gelded son of two-time Horse of the Year and 2014 Hall of Famer Curlin, to his usual vacation spot at Dark Hollow Farm in Upperco, Md. after he ran at least once in 17 of 20 months dating back to July 2020 once racing resumed in Maryland following a hiatus amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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“Cordmaker’s good. We just gave him a nice break. I scrubbed on him pretty good there for a while,” Jenkins said. “I’ll start him up in a couple weeks. We’re going to point for the stakes in the winter with him.”
Cordmaker owns 14 wins, 10 of them in stakes, from 36 career starts and is just $10,360 away from reaching the $1 million mark in purse earnings. Third in the Pimlico Special in 2019 and 2020, he went to the sidelines on a career-high four-race win streak.
Bred in Maryland by trainer Katy Voss and the late Bob Manfuso, Cordmaker won the Jan. 29 Jennings at Laurel to open 2022 after ending last year with victories in the Richard W. Small and Robert T. Manfuso to clinch the older male long dirt division and overall Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series titles.
“If anyone deserved a nice vacation, it was him. He looks wonderful. He’s put his weight back on. We’ll see. I’ll run him here in about a month probably,” Jenkins said. “He came back dead sound and doesn’t have a pimple on him, knock on wood.
“He’s such a good horse. We’re looking forward to [his next race], but we’re taking our time,” he added. “We just leg him up and jog him and stuff like that. It doesn’t take much to get him fit.”
Jenkins is also looking forward to getting Hillwood’s Treasure Tradition back to the races. The 4-year-old Great Notion gelding, bred in Maryland by Morgan’s Ford Farm, has run first or second in his last five starts dating back to last October. He was a popular 2 ¼-length winner of a seven-furlong Maryland-bred/sired allowance March 26 at Laurel in his most recent effort.
“I like him a lot,” Jenkins said. “He’s a closer. He comes from way out of it, and he can run.”
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