Awesome Banner to return to sprint game

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The two-turn experiment now over, Awesome Banner will concentrate on sprinting for the remainder of the year, trainer Stanley Gold said this week. Awesome Banner finished far back in both the Fountain of Youth and Tampa Bay Derby after opening his career with three one-sided sprint victories, including a five-length triumph in the Grade 2 Swale.

Awesome Banner is being pointed for one of the Summit of Speed races at Gulfstream on July 2, Gold said.

“The distance experiment didn’t work,” he said. “It makes me sorry that we did it, but you never know when you have the next 3-year-old star who can go wire to wire in one of these big races. If you don’t try it, you’ll never know. But he was excuse-free in Tampa, so the decision has been made to make the Summit of Speed our next target. He breezed 35 and change a few days ago, did it in hand, and acts happy and like he never even ran in those two races. I haven’t picked anything out for him yet, but he doesn’t have to wait until July to run. I’ll find something here for him at the summer meet before the Summit of Speed.”