Tiz the Bomb wins Bourbon S. (G2), earns Breeders’ Cup trip

Tiz the Bomb overcame an outside post and breaking through the starting gate early to win the $200,000 Castle & Key Bourbon S. (G2) Sunday at Keeneland.

As part of the Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” Challenge Series, the Bourbon victory assured the 2-year-old Hit It Bomb as spot in the starting gate for the Nov. 5 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1).

The drama started even before the race began when Tiz the Bomb, in post 12, broke through the starting gate. He was quickly caught and reloaded, then managed to break quite well and move over to the two path, in fourth, for the trip around the first turn. He held his spot down the backstretch, the actually lost some ground and was sixth coming into the stretch.

Jockey Brian Hernandez, Jr. took Tiz the Bomb four-wide for clear running. He got by Red Danger to take the lead with a sixteenth to go, then held off Stolen Base to win by three-quarters of a length in 1:43.69 on the “good” turf.

“It’s not a good omen, typically, and yeah, it makes a trainer nervous when it happens, but Brian did a great job wrangling him up and keeping him under control,” winning trainer Ken McPeek said of Tiz a Bomb breaking through the starting gate.

The Bourbon is Tiz the Bomb’s first graded stake win and comes just a little more than a month after he won the $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile. He is now 3-0-0 in four starts and has earned $447,841 for Phoenix Thoroughbred LTD.

“I think for this horse definitely the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1) is ideal,” McPeek said of the colt’s next start.

Tiz the Bomb is one of six stakes winners this year for Hit It a Bomb. The bay colt was bred by Spendthrift Farm and was the sire’s most expensive yearling of 2020 when he sold for $330,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Select Yearlings sale.