Algiers goes to plan B in Durham Cup
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ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Algiers, fresh off a valiant second in the $12 million Dubai World Cup, competes for a mere $150,000 purse in Saturday’s Grade 3 Durham Cup at Woodbine.
Trainer Simon Crisford sent Algiers to Aqueduct for last weekend’s Grade 2 Woodward, but scratched him because of the uncertainly of the drying-out main track and because of some missed training days following a deluge of rain in New York.
Algiers won the first two rounds of the Al Maktoum Challenge at Meydan convincingly in advance of his last outing in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup over the same track on March 25. After racing three wide in fifth, he opened up a clear lead through the stretch before giving way late to finish 2 3/4 lengths in arrears. The Japanese horse who beat him in the 1 1/4-mile dirt event, Ushba Tesoro, exited a layoff to win a stakes in Japan on Sept. 27 to set him up for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
“He ran a super race on World Cup Night,” assistant trainer Ed Crisford said. “He was quite near the pace and they were going fierce fractions and that last furlong he was just a bit leg-weary.”
The Durham Cup will be contested over 1 1/16 miles on the Tapeta. Algiers’s only synthetic-track start was a nose loss in a 1 1/4-mile stakes last November at Lingfield under Robert Havlin, who has the mount Saturday. This will be the 6-year-old gelding’s first race with Lasix.
War Court, Treason, War Bomber, and Wolfie’s Dynaghost are among the others in the nine-horse field.
A 5-year-old owned by Chiefswood Stables, War Court was sent to trainer Layne Giliforte after his first two poor performances at 3. He graduated in his third start for Giliforte in the summer of 2022 and then doubled up in a first-level allowance last October.
“After he came to me, he just started to come around,” Giliforte recalled. “He showed promise right from the first time I ran him. The first one was a turf race, and it was just a little too short for him. After that, he’s been very consistent.”
War Court cleared the second allowance condition in his third start this year by 3 1/2 lengths on Aug. 24, earning a career-high 89 Beyer Speed Figure. This will be War Court’s stakes debut. Giliforte sent out Touch’n Ride to win last Sunday’s $403,000 Breeders’ Stakes.
Treason has been idle since ending up a close second to War Bomber in the Grade 2 King Edward here Aug. 19. War Bomber returned to finish a distant fourth in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile to Master of The Seas, one of the favorites in Saturday’s Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland.
Wolfie’s Dynaghost ships in from Turfway off a victory in a lucrative allowance going a mile over the undulating turf course at Kentucky Downs. The front-runner won Turfway’s Kentucky Cup Classic in March and was softened up in a speed duel when a chalky fifth in the Grade 2 Eclipse here June 4.
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