Adventist displays eagerness working toward Wood

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Adventist, the third-place finisher in both the Withers and Gotham stakes, and Cadeyrn, an 11-length maiden winner here last month, both put in workouts Friday morning as preparations for the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial on April 9 began to pick up.

Adventist may have done a little more than trainer Leah Gyarmati was looking for Friday in a workout that will officially go down as a half-mile in 49.92 seconds. With jockey Kendrick Carmouche aboard, Adventist was pretty eager galloping around the first turn and down the backside of the Belmont Park training track and actually went in 14.30 seconds from the five-eighths pole to the half-mile, which wasn’t part of the work.

From the half-mile pole to the quarter pole, Adventist went in 24.35 seconds, and from the quarter pole to the wire, he went in 25.57. He galloped out another eighth in 13.97.

“It was his first work from the race. I wasn’t aiming to do anything big. I was just trying to stretch his legs,” Gyarmati said. “He actually ended up doing more than I was thinking he would. He did it eagerly; he looked really good doing it. The jockey was happy with him.”

In his two route races after winning his debut sprinting, Adventist showed some resistance to Carmouche taking a hold of him to get him behind horses. During Friday’s work, Carmouche let Adventist do more of what the horse wanted.

“In the race, he takes a little hold to sit behind horses, and he fights him a little bit,” Gyarmati said. “He wants to have a little looser rein and let him move a little freer – that was his take on the work. That worked a lot better, [he was] a lot smoother, a lot more comfortable.”

Earlier in the morning, Cadeyrn worked a half-mile in 48.04 seconds in company with the 3-year-old New York-bred maiden winner Terian.

Cadeyrn, a son of Malibu Moon, is coming off an 11-length victory going a mile over the inner track Feb. 20. It was his first start with blinkers.

“He ran so much better than he did in his first three starts,” trainer Jeremiah Englehart said. “This is definitely a class test, but I don’t think distance will be a problem. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of what he can do yet.”