BC Sprint winner Work All Week turned out at owners' Florida farm

STICKNEY, Ill. – Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Work All Week is getting a winter break at the Ocala, Fla.-area farm of owners-breeders Rich and Karen Papiese.

Work All Week flew from California to Florida following his BC Sprint win at Santa Anita. At first, he was turned out in a round pen and recently has been spending time in a one-acre paddock.

“We’ll give him at least 30 days,” Rich Papiese said. “We’ll monitor the situation, but there’s no reason to hurry back.”

Papiese said Work All Week is likely to return to the track sometime in January, when he will join trainer Roger Brueggemann’s string at Oaklawn Park. The Count Fleet Sprint there in April would be a reasonable early-season goal, Papiese said, but no racing schedule has been set.

Work All Week was a 19-1 shot when scoring a half-length win in the BC Sprint over the race’s 2013 victor, Secret Circle. A 5-year-old gelding by City Zip, Work All Week has won 12 of his 15 career starts and is a perfect 10 for 10 on dirt. He figures to be a major contender for an Eclipse Award as the leading North American sprinter of 2014.

** Hawthorne’s runaway leading jockey, Manny Esquivel, will continue riding here through much of December but plans to move his tack to Oaklawn Park for its 2015 race meeting, according to his agent, Ben Allen. As an apprentice, Esquivel was the leading rider at the 2013 Arlington meet. He entered this week’s action at Hawthorne with 41 wins, 15 more than nearest competitor Tim Thornton’s total at the meet.