Tom Amoss aims for fourth straight Hilton win
Photo by Coady Photography.
From a Charles Town release
Trainer Tom Amoss will go for a fourth consecutive victory in the Robert Hilton Memorial when he sends out Midwest Thoroughbreds’ Quijote against six other three-year-olds in the seven-furlong tilt on Saturday at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races.
After starting the streak in 2013 with Free World, Amoss continued it in 2014 with Rise Up and added a third straight triumph in the Hilton with Control Stake last year. He now turns to the Florida-bred son of Pomeroy to give him yet another victory on the Charles Town Classic undercard.
Quijote started his career with two victories at Fairgrounds, and would make the leap into stakes company in just his third career start – the Jimmy Winkfield at Aqueduct where he ran into a tough customer in Awesome Gent. While Quijote was only able to manage a runner-up finish, he did cross the wire ahead of King Kranz who subsequently came back to run second to the very talented Unified in the Bay Shore (G3) on Wood Memorial day.
Quijote figures to go off favored in the Robert Hilton and will have Jose Ortiz in the saddle for the first time.
While a maiden, Serjeant Equine’s Virtual Machine hasn’t performed like one and almost got the first win of his young career in a stakes race last time out when he checked in second, beaten 1 1/2 lengths in the $100,000 Rushaway at Turfway Park. Trained by West Virginia native Joe Sharp, Virtual Machine sported a string of three close-up defeats in maiden special weights at Fairgrounds prior to giving the Rushaway a try.
The chestnut colt by Drosselmeyer shortens up under a mile for the first time since December and will have Kendrick Carmouche aboard.
Others in the Robert Hilton Memorial field include Easy River from the barn of Hamilton Smith, recent Gulfstream Park maiden winner Dig Deep, West Virginia-bred Siente El Viento and a pair from trainer Gerald Brooks in Huntin’theholidays and I Came to Party, with the latter most recently third in the Federico Tesio at Laurel.
The Robert Hilton Memorial is scheduled as Race 10 on the Charles Town Classic card and is slated to go off at 4:50 P.M. EST.
