Ole Crazy Bone edges Fort George in gritty Bowling Green victory

Ole Crazy Bone turned the Grade 2 Bowling Green into a survival test and won it, edging Fort George by a nose in 2:14.18 for 1 3/8 miles on the Saratoga turf. The $250,000 race on July 11 was reduced to six runners after scratches that included Carcano and the main-track-only entrants Dr. Kraft, Kinetic and Yo Daddy, but the short field did nothing to soften the pressure on the front.

Flavien Prat hustled the 6-year-old gelded son of Ghostzapper to the lead and never got a breather. Ole Crazy Bone carved out fractions of :24.62, :49.54, 1:15.22 and 1:39.98 on the firm inner turf before Fort George, ridden by Kieran Shoemark, stayed close enough to turn the race into a stretch fight. Even when Fort George matched strides at the top of the lane, Prat kept asking and Ole Crazy Bone answered along the rail, finding the last bit he needed to regain the edge.

That kind of finish sharpened the profile of a horse whose rise has come the hard way. Mike Maker claimed Ole Crazy Bone for $100,000 out of an off-the-turf optional claimer at Churchill Downs last June, then watched him develop into a stakes horse who won the Grade 2 Kentucky Turf Cup Invitational at Kentucky Downs in September 2025 by 3 3/4 lengths. He missed the Breeders’ Cup Turf last fall after a knee chip, but he came back from that setback and was second to Dresden Row in a 1 1/16-mile optional claimer at Churchill on May 21 before shipping to Saratoga for a far sterner test.

The Bowling Green fit that storyline perfectly. BloodHorse said Ole Crazy Bone had seven top-three finishes in his last eight starts, and this one added something more valuable than a clear-margin score: proof that he can absorb pace, handle distance and keep fighting when a race gets rough. For bettors, that matters. A horse that wins after controlling the tempo is useful; a horse that controls it and still has to repel a serious closer at 1 3/8 miles starts to look dependable in the kind of staying spots that decide summer turf divisions.

The result also left a clear next step for the runner-up. Fort George is expected to stay in New York for the $750,000 Christophe Clement Turf Stakes on Aug. 15, a 1 1/2-mile Grade 1 and a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland. In that larger Saratoga picture, Ole Crazy Bone’s narrow win said as much about stamina and resolve as it did about class.