Keeneland: Turallure, Successful Dan back in training after brief 2012 campaigns

Barbara D. Livingston

Grade 1 winner Turallure hasn't started since July due to a bone bruise.

Charlie Lopresti can hardly wait to get started on another year of racing.

Lopresti, who guided Wise Dan to the 2012 Horse of the Year title and two other Eclipse Awards, is excited about the prospects that 2013 holds not only for Wise Dan, but also for Successful Dan and Turallure, whose campaigns last year were compromised by injury.

“They’re all doing awesome,” Lopresti said Friday.

Unlike the vast majority of his training colleagues, Lopresti shuts down most of his stable for the winter, running the occasional starter at Turfway Park while going into regroup mode at Keeneland with his best horses.

The strategy worked like a charm last year for Wise Dan, who won Eclipses for top older horse and top turf horse after starting his year in late April in the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland. Lopresti is pointing for another April start at Keeneland for Wise Dan, although even that is getting way ahead of schedule.

“They’re all just galloping right now,” he said. “Turallure is at the head of the class right now. He’s training like a monster, just begging for his first work. I’ve got to start cranking on him real soon.”

Turallure was diagnosed with bone bruising in early July after a disappointing start to his 2012 season. Now 6, he was a major force on grass in 2011, when he won the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile and was beaten an inch in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on the Churchill Downs turf.

Similarly, the multiple graded stakes-winning Successful Dan saw his season end in June after being upset by Fort Larned in the Cornhusker Handicap at Prairie Meadows. A 7-year-old half-brother to Wise Dan, he was sidelined by a ligament strain in his left front ankle.

“Successful Dan and Turallure are ahead of schedule compared to Wise Dan,” he said. “But it’ll all even out soon enough. We’ll start on some works for all of them here real soon and take it from there.”