Spicer Cub rallies furiously after bolting in a Pimlico maiden race in April 2013. Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.
Fan favorite Spicer Cub — notorious for his wild ride in a 2013 maiden race at Pimlico — ran second today in an allowance test at Laurel Park. It was the third start of the five-year-old’s comeback this season and his first in-the-money finish.
The Louis Quatorze gelding rose to prominence in April 2013 during a Pimlico maiden race (video at right) when he made the lead, bolted not once but twice — the latter time to the outside of the starting gate — then re-rallied to be second a nose. “Do you believe in miracles?” called track announcer Dave Rodman at the time.
Spicer Cub, trained by Mary Eppler, subsequently won two races in 2013 but was injured during his second-place effort in the Maryland Million Starter Handicap, suffering a condylar fracture of his left hind.
He returned to the races on October 1 — 18 days shy of an entire year since his last race — and had finished seventh and fifth in his first two comeback starts.
Today, against second-level allowance rivals, Spicer Cub, dismissed at 15-1, rallied in the lane to be second behind runaway winner Golden Rings. He was 5 3/4 lengths behind the winner and a neck ahead of show horse Tru Greek.
Spicer Cub, a horse Eppler once described as “a character,” has two wins and six second-place finishes from 17 starts with earnings of nearly $93,000.
