Bush hopes Get Stormy can follow in Sire’s Makers Mark Mile hoofprints

Ten years ago, trainer Tom Bush recorded his first Grade 1 victory when Get Stormy rolled to a 2¾-length victory in the Maker’s Mark Mile (G1), a margin that stands as the largest in the race’s history.

On Friday, Bush will shoot for a second victory in the race with the Mary Abeel Sullivan Revocable Trust’s Get Smokin, a 4-year-old gelding by Get Stormy.

“He sure has been special for us, and it would be great to get another Grade 1 for Get Stormy at Keeneland,” Bush said Tuesday morning after watching Get Smokin return to the barn from his initial trip over the main track.

A homebred for Mary Sullivan’s Sullimar Stable, Get Stormy was a Keeneland regular from 2009-2012, winning the Bryan Station (G3) at 3, placing fourth and second in the 2010 and 2011 Shadwell Turf Mile (G1), respectively, and finishing fourth in the 2012 Maker’s Mark Mile. In his career, Get Stormy earned more than $1.6 million and won seven graded stakes, three of them Grade 1s.

Like his sire, Get Smokin features a prominent blaze and figures to be prominent coming out of the gate.

“He will probably be on the pace,” Bush said. “He sat off another horse at Tampa (when he won the Tampa Bay-G3). It was nice to see that dimension.”

The victory at Tampa was the second graded stakes score for Get Smokin, who led all the way in last fall’s Hill Prince (G2) at Belmont Park before closing 2020 with a fourth-place finish in the Hollywood Derby (G1) in which he was beaten less than a length.

Bush nearly recorded a second Maker’s Mark Mile victory in 2019 when Clyde’s Image, also a son of Get Stormy, finished second in the race at 46-1.

“I think this year’s race is deeper than the one ‘Clyde’ was in,” Bush said of Clyde’s Image, who finished third at 27-1 behind eventual Horse of the Year Bricksand Mortar in his next start in the Old Forester Turf Classic (G1) at Churchill Downs.

“He (Get Smokin) would have to do extremely well (in the Maker’s Mark Mile),” Bush said of coming back in three weeks in the Old Forester Turf Classic. “The mile and an eighth is right at his limit.”

Before Bush saddles Get Smokin on Friday, he has a trip planned for Thursday to nearby Crestwood Farm.

“Am I going to go see Get Stormy? Absolutely,” Bush said. “I go see him every time I am here.”