Graham Motion hoping 13 lucky on the Laurel lawn
Plenty of live runners for local barn
Nick Hahn
May 14, 2026
To trainer Graham Motion. Laurel Park’s turf course looks mighty enticing.
The veteran conditioner has 13 runners entered at Laurel over Preakness weekend, including eight in stakes races. All 13 are running on the turf.
“We’ve got some good action,” acknowledged Motion. “It’s something we always kind of point for. A lot of these guys are coming back off freshenings or little breaks with this weekend in mind. I certainly feel good about what we’re running.”
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Shortly after Laurel opened its turf course for racing on April 10, Motion struck. Sassari won the April 12 opener on the lawn. Later that day, so did Italian Soiree.
All that’s just the warmup act.
“I think some of these races perhaps came up a little lighter in field size than I expected, which is why I decided to put another horse in, for example Turf Star,” said Motion. “I wasn’t necessarily planning on running him, but numbers-wise it came up a little light and it’s a great opportunity for him.”
While Turf Star (5-2) comes back to the turf in Saturday’s $100,000 James Murphy Stakes after a disappointing try on the synthetic surface in the Jeff Ruby Stakes at Turfway, it’s Motion’s Proton (9-5) coming back to the mile distance that is the morning line favorite, somehow his only morning line favorite on the card.
“We really kind of circled this race after his last run because I think the mile is going to suit him better and it’s a track that he’s run on and run well,” assesses Motion. “I think the last time, the grass came up a little soft. It was a pretty competitive race and maybe going a little further than he wants to go.”
Motion likes the way the Laurel turf course handles rain and doesn’t expect a softer turf course as has been seen at Pimlico in years past. Expect Motion’s entries to be ready.
“I think the biggest difference between running on the turf and the dirt is you don’t have to be quite as fit running on the turf,” explained Motion, who expects firmer going despite the mid-week rainfall. “It’s much easier to skip over a firm turf course than a deep track. It doesn’t take quite as much training, perhaps, to get them on the turf.”
Motion’s weekend at Laurel won’t do much to alter his turf specialist tag or conventional thinking about “come from behind” turf racing. Don’t expect to see many of his starters in the lead early on. His mentor believed as much in training the equine mind as the equine body.
“I grew up in the school of Jonathan Sheppard, where the reason he had so many turf horses is because he could teach them to relax,” suggested Motion. “That’s the standard that we go by when we try to get our horse to settle, so you see a lot of them come from off the pace.”
Cruise the Nile (9-5) looks for his fifth straight win in Saturday’s $250,000 Dinner Party (G3) at a mile and an eighth. It will be his first graded stakes try and the first time in his career at that distance.
It’s a big ask,” admits Motion. “I was worried about it, to be honest. I didn’t necessarily plan on running in this race right after he won the Henry Clark, but talking to [jockey Jorge Ruiz], he feels like he relaxes. He didn’t think the extra sixteenth was going to hurt him. He’s already won going a mile and a sixteenth on the synthetic. And I actually think the synthetic is a more tiring surface than the firm turf.”
On the same card, Motion also starts Ribaltagaia (6-1) and Warming (12-1) in the $150,000 Gallorette (G3) for fillies and mares going a mile and a sixteenth.
“Same thing with Ribaltagaia,” noted Motion. “She ran really well in the prep and I hadn’t necessarily planned on running in it this weekend, but again, it seems like a good opportunity to run her back in a graded race.”
Isivunguvungu (10-1) makes his 2026 debut in the $125,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint going five and a half furlongs. On Black-Eyed Susan day on Friday, Motion has Siouxse (12-1) and Prat Back (8-1) in the $125,000 Hilltop Stakes going a mile.
If you consider Motion racing on his preferred surface at the track he considers home not far down I-95 from where he is stabled at Fair Hill, anything short of a few winner’s circle trips would be demoralizing.
“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t come away with a couple of winners for sure,” expects Motion. “I feel like we’re in some live spots, whether it’s the stakes or the allowances or even the maidens. At the end of the day, Laurel Park, I consider it to be my home track. It’s where I started. It’s always been the track that I’ve tended to run the most horses. It’s pretty cool, actually, that (the Preakness) is at Laurel, which is a track that we’re very familiar with.”
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