FRANKLIN, Ky. - Following a major stakes win a horse’s owner might credit the trainer for hatching and executing a plan. After Get Smokin scored a 19-1 upset on Saturday at Kentucky Downs in the Grade 2, $1.7 million Kentucky Turf Cup, the roles reversed.  Get Smokin, making his first start beyond 1 1/4 miles and just his second at a distance beyond 1 1/8, burst to the lead and never looked back, beating Spooky Channel by 1 3/4 lengths in a race over 1 1/2 miles.  “I’ve got to give Harlan a lot of credit,” said David Carroll, assistant to trainer Mark Casse. Carroll has been overseeing Get Smokin’s training in Kentucky and saddled him Saturday.  “Harlan” is Harlan Malter, who has a restless mind often trained on horseracing. The ideas can wash over a listener to the point of near drowning. Sometimes they seem outlandish. Malter is the principal in Ironhorse Racing, which forms racehorse partnerships. Ironhorse’s best runner until this year was Bucchero, an Indiana-bred who became a classy turf sprinter and finished fourth in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. The following June, Malter engineered an Indiana-bred assault on Royal Ascot, where Bucchero was a respectable fifth in the Group 1 King’s Stand.  :: Bet with the Best! Get Free DRF PPs and Cashback when you wager. Join DRF Bets. Late in 2021, Ironhorse and partners BlackRidge Stables, T-N-T Equine Holdings, and Saratoga Seven Racing Partners privately purchased Get Smokin. The gelding was 4 at the time. He’d won two graded turf stakes and placed in several others, his sweet spot a distance of about one mile. In his first start for Casse and the new owners, Get Smokin ran his standard race, leading and finishing second in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay over 1 1/16 miles.   Next up – the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint on the Dubai World Cup undercard, a six-furlong sprint down a straight course. One might guess it was not Casse that birthed this strange idea. Get Smokin lost by 45 lengths  He came back to America and raced the rest of 2022 and into 2023 like he always had, showing speed and leading, but unable to quicken sufficiently to win. The cutback to a sprint had gone poorly, but Malter, 52, is not easily deterred. What if, he wondered, Get Smokin could put his speed to use in longer races, where he might more easily control the pace while facing horses without a miler’s turn of foot? Get Smokin tried 1 1/4 miles for the first time in a Turf Cup prep last month at Ellis Park. He set the pace and finished fourth.  A different person might have kept things in the channel. Get Smokin was eligible for the restricted $500,000 Tapit Stakes opening day this meet, a race over his standard trip, one mile, 70 yards. Malter didn’t want less distance – he wanted more, urging Casse to consider the Turf Cup, with a huge pot of gold waiting at the end of its long trip.  “Harlan was advocating for the mile and a half. We were a little skeptical about it,” Carroll said. “But the horse was doing unbelievably well.”  World-class jockey Luis Saez rode Get Smokin last month at Ellis Park, but Saez is injured, and unavailable. For a replacement, Malter turned to ... Fernando de la Cruz.   De la Cruz is a 37-year-old Peruvian based at Horseshoe Indianapolis. He had two graded stakes wins in his career. Those had come on Bucchero. So, there was the old Ironhorse connection, but de la Cruz never had ridden Get Smokin. De la Cruz had no other mounts Saturday at Kentucky Downs. Malter met him in the parking lot and emphasized that this whole idea was about making maximal use of Get Smokin’s best attribute – his speed.   It worked.   De la Cruz broke on top from post 5 and quickly got to the lead. His opening quarter-mile was robust, 24 seconds. The hope was to clear the other pace player, Santin, and give Get Smokin a breather during the middle portion of the race.  “And then he was either going to get the distance, or not,” Carroll said.  The key stage of the race might have been the fourth and fifth quarter-miles, de la Cruz guiding Get Smokin down a hill and into the far turn in 23.81, then going a robust 24.71 around the turn and into the homestretch. The Kentucky Downs course was tiring Saturday. It was favoring speed much of the day and the lanes nearest the rail were the best place to be. It was difficult to make up ground. No one ever looked like they were catching the winner.  Spooky Channel, a game 8-year-old, came closest, though he was not getting to Get Smokin, who might have made another circuit and not been collared.  “They picked up and kind of caught us a little flat-footed at the bottom of the hill,” jockey James Graham said. “He finally started grinding into them. He's a quality animal, shows up every time.”  Spooky Channel passed Santin, but his run appeared to have lost momentum in the final strides, Santin nearly coming back to pass him. Nine-year-old Red Knight raced against the track profile over a course he loves and was solid finishing fourth. The winning time was 2:28.66 and Get Smokin paid $41.14.  Success came not just from Malter’s thinking against the grain. Get Smokin has done well in the Casse barn. Carroll’s wife, Kim Carroll, rides him every morning and gives the gelding daily massages. “She loves this horse to death,” Carroll said.  The Turf Cup, besides paying $972,220 to the winner, is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series and Get Smokin has automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Turf. By Get Stormy out of the Smoke Glacken mare, Hookah Lady, the 6-year-old gelding has the pedigree of a sprinter-miler and the body type of one, too. But you will see him race next in the 1 1/2-mile Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita.   Unless Harlan Malter has other ideas.  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.