Saratoga: Giant Oak arrives for Whitney

Barbara D. Livingston

Giant Oak is being pointed to the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney Handicap on Aug. 6.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Add another Grade 1 winner to the Whitney field.

Giant Oak, who won the Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream in February, arrived at Saratoga on Tuesday morning to prepare for a start in the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney Handicap here Aug. 6. He will join other Grade 1 winners such as Tizway, Pool Play, Sidney’s Candy, Morning Line, and Rail Trip as well as graded stakes winners Mission Impazible and Rodman.

Trainer Chris Block said he shipped Giant Oak here from Arlington early in order to get a couple of works over Saratoga’s main track.

“We wanted to get him in there and get settled in and get him a feel of the racetrack,” Block said by phone from Arlington. “He’s been doing well. Outside of that race, I don’t know where else I’d run him. He’s proven he can run with that kind when things set up well for him.”

Since winning the Donn, Giant Oak was third to Mission Impazible in the New Orleans Handicap, fifth, beaten less than a length, in the Alysheba, and fifth, beaten less than three lengths, in the Stephen Foster at Churchill on June 18.

“He had a very wide trip off the turn, he was fanned out eight wide, and that really took away from his punch,” Block said about the Stephen Foster. “He was advancing nicely to the eighth pole, then hit a brick wall.”

Right One eyes Woodbine Mile

With no races at a mile or less at Saratoga for Right One, trainer Christophe Clement said that he would likely give the Jaipur Stakes winner a brief freshening for the summer and point to a fall campaign that could include the $1 million Woodbine Mile on Sept, 18.

Right One won for the third time from four starts in North America, getting up in the final stride to defeat Yield Bogey by a head in the Jaipur, running seven furlongs in 1:21.87 and earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 93.

“He might have a summer break, and we’ll bring him back in September,” Clement said. “He’s better seven furlongs to a mile, which means Saratoga doesn’t work. I would have a look at the Woodbine Mile, although it may be too ambitious.”