Belmont Park: Midnight Taboo returns to stakes company in Coastal

ELMONT, N.Y. – The Belmont Stakes might have been a tad ambitious for Midnight Taboo to make his stakes debut. Wednesday’s $100,000 Coastal Stakes – named in honor of the 1979 Belmont winner – looks apropos for Midnight Taboo’s second stakes attempt.

The Coastal, a 1 1/16-mile race that could be used as a prep for the Grade 3 Discovery on Nov. 2 at Aqueduct, drew a field of seven 3-year-olds, but at least one will not run. Escapefromreality, the winner of the Albany Stakes in his most recent start, is out due to an unspecified injury.

“It’s nothing major,” trainer Dominick Schettino said, adding that scratching is “the right thing to do by the horse.”

Midnight Taboo, a son of Langfuhr trained by Todd Pletcher for Mike Repole, finished 12th in the Belmont Stakes. After an eight-week layoff, he finished fourth in a first-level allowance race at Saratoga in which he stumbled at the start and was steadied on the backstretch.

He came back three weeks later to win a first-level allowance race at Saratoga by a neck despite racing three to four wide around both turns. He was entered in last weekend’s Indiana Derby but scratched after drawing post No. 12.

“I still think he’s a pretty nice horse,” Pletcher said. “Still a work in progress. I certainly think if he continues to move forward, he can be a pretty solid handicap horse.”

After running in three straight races around two turns, Midnight Taboo will cut back to a one-turn race Wednesday. He won a maiden race going one turn at Aqueduct in April and finished second, when encountering traffic problems, to Irsaal at the Coastal’s distance in a May 8 allowance race in the mud.

The track’s condition is in question for Wednesday, as remnants of a tropical storm were expected to hit this area Monday night and into Tuesday morning.

The defection of Escapefromreality could benefit Smooth Bert, who comes off a front-running second-level allowance race win here on opening day. Trainer Leah Gyarmati felt that running Smooth Bert against open-company 3-year-olds was better than trying him against older New York-breds in the Empire Classic on Oct. 19. He also is a two-time winner on off tracks.

“It seems like numbers-wise, I fit in there – that’s all I can go by really,” Gyarmati said. “The way he ran the last time, if he can come close to that, it’ll certainly be a good spot.”

Saint Vigeur, who finished second in the Grade 2 Peter Pan in the slop, has not run since finishing second to Moreno in the Grade 2 Dwyer here July 6.

Tenango won a one-mile starter-allowance race in the mud here by 12 3/4 lengths in May. Vegas No Show comes in off a minor stakes win at Delaware Park.