Aqueduct: Jerome prospect Right to Vote could evolve into quality runner for Harty

Benoit & Associates

Trainer Eoin Harty says he expects his 3-year-old stakes winner Out of Bounds to make a 100 percent recovery from surgery.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Had things gone to plan, trainer Eoin Harty would be preparing Out of Bounds for next month’s Kentucky Derby.

But, as so often happens on the Triple Crown trail, Harty’s Derby dreams were dashed when Out of Bounds sustained a condylar fracture of his left foreleg on March 5, knocking him out of the spring and summer races.

“Believe me, that was a tough one to swallow,” Harty said Friday from Keeneland.

While the classics are out of reach this year for Harty, the 49-year-old trainer has another 3-year-old he hopes has a future as a stakes horse. Next Saturday, at Aqueduct, he will send out Right to Vote in the Grade 2, $200,000 Jerome Stakes.

“There are lots of big races and lots of money to be made with the right kind of horse,” Harty said of Right to Vote. “I think he’s the right kind of horse.”

Right to Vote has already raced three times in New York, finishing second in his debut last August at Saratoga and winning a six-furlong maiden race at Belmont last September.

He stepped up to the Grade 1 Champagne, where he made the lead at three-furlong pole, but was swallowed up by Union Rags inside the eighth pole and nipped at the wire by Alpha for second.

Right to Vote followed Power World for five furlongs, but inherited the lead earlier than Harty had hoped.

“The Champagne was a great race,” Harty said. “I wanted to follow something around there as long as possible because once he gets to the front he loses focus. He had to run the last five-sixteenths by himself. He ran really well. If I had something to follow a little longer – I wasn’t going to beat Union Rags – but possibly I could’ve finished second.”

While Union Rags and Alpha have become major players for the Derby, Right to Vote – who was neither Breeders’ Cup nor Triple Crown nominated– got a winter break. He returned in a first-level allowance race on March 24 at Gulfstream, one in which he stalked a hot pace and made a bid between horses before prevailing by a head over Scaramagna.

Harty noted that Right to Vote “was unmanageable and untrainable” which led to him being gelded before he ever ran. Further, Harty described Right to Vote as “bizarre.”

“He’ll be 100 percent calm and something unseen will set him off and send him to the other side of the racetrack,” Harty said. “He’s liable to do anything.”

Harty believes the physical talent is there for Right to Vote, now he just needs to catch up mentally.

“When he matures I think he could go from a good horse to a very good horse,” Harty said.

Others pointing to the Jerome include Adirondack King, Dan and Sheila, Sensor, and Term Loan.

Meanwhile, Harty said he paid a visit to Out of Bounds on Thursday in Lexington, Ky., where the horse is about 30 days into a four-month rehabilitation process from surgery.

“Except for the stitches in his ankle, you’d never know he had surgery,” Harty said. “I’d expect him to make a 100-percent recovery.”