For now, Arnold second in Trainer victories all time at Keeneland

During Friday’s 10-race card on opening day of the Keeneland Spring Meet, trainer Rusty Arnold saddled two winners to raise his Keeneland victory total to 282 and move him one ahead of Bill Mott for second all time behind the 295 victories by D. Wayne Lukas.

“Bill and I have been going back and forth probably 20 times over the years (for most wins here),” Arnold said Saturday morning. “I kid him that he may have more bullets than I do, but I am younger.”

Arnold, who saddled his first winner here in the late 1970s, tied Mott when Calumet Farm’s Gear Jockey won the fifth race going a mile on the grass and passed him with Reiko and Michael Baum’s Illiogamiwhen she posted her initial victory in the 10^th race. He almost had a third victory when first-time starter Magic Quest, owned by G. Watts Humphrey Jr., was beaten a neck in the sixth race.

Arnold said Gear Jockey, who finished third as a maiden in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1) at Santa Anita, might be pointed to the $120,000 Opening Verse going a mile on the turf April 29 at Churchill Downs. He called Illiogami “a filly with a future” and said she will head into the allowance ranks.