Belmont Park: Point of Entry, Palace Malice work for Breeders' Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – John Velazquez got reacquainted with one old friend and was introduced to a new buddy Sunday morning at Belmont Park, as preparations continued for next month’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

Velazquez worked multiple Grade 1 winner Point of Entry five furlongs in 1:01.20 on Sunday over the Belmont turf, a solid move that appears to have Point of Entry on schedule for the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 2.

Point of Entry, second in last year’s Turf, has not run since winning the Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont on June 8. He came out of that race with a hind-leg fracture that required surgery. Sunday’s move was Point of Entry’s fifth work and his first on turf since he resumed training.

Ninety minutes earlier, Velazquez climbed aboard Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice for the first time, guiding him through a four-furlong workout in 48.26 seconds over the Belmont training track. Velazquez will ride Palace Malice for the first time in a race in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 2.

Point of Entry had the most important work of a gorgeous fall morning as he attempts to make it to the Breeders’ Cup off what would be a nearly five-month layoff.

For the move, Velazquez had Point of Entry inside of workmate Overwhelming. With three sets of orange cones, known as “dogs,” keeping the works toward the outside of the inner turf course, Point of Entry went his first quarter in 25.44 seconds and got his last three furlongs in 35.76 while finishing about a head in front of Overwhelming.

“He started running off with me about 20 yards before the [five-furlong] pole,” Velazquez said. “Got to the three-eighths pole, I put my hands down; now you can do whatever you want. He put his head in front of the other horse, I kind of waited, and we picked it up pretty quickly from the quarter pole home. I was like, 'Wow, that’s a good work,’ and I let him gallop out another eighth of a mile – make sure to let him do something.”

Velazquez said that despite the layoff, he felt good about Point of Entry’s chances to make it to the race.

“Right now, he’s doing really good,” Velazquez said. “We have to run a mile and a half. We don’t know if he’s going to be 100 percent or not because he’s not even going to run a race before he goes over there. Listen, he’s a good horse. I think if Shug can get him there, I think he’ll run really good.”

Velazquez was referring to trainer Shug McGaughey, who liked what he saw from Point of Entry and sounded more confident that the horse can make the race.

“I was very happy with Point of Entry; I thought he went really nice,” said McGaughey, who watched the work with co-owner Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps. “I didn’t know really what to expect. He’d been working on the dirt. I thought we had a good bottom in him. That’s why I wanted Johnny to work him just to sort of see what he thought, and you heard what he thought.”

McGaughey said he’ll have time to get two more solid works into Point of Entry.

In his work aboard Palace Malice, Velazquez found an unscheduled target as another horse who was working five furlongs and was well in front of Palace Malice piqued his colt’s interest. Palace Malice got the final three furlongs of the work in 35.58 seconds and galloped out five furlongs in 1:01.09 and six furlongs in 1:14.11.

“Very nice – went really, really good,” Velazquez said. “I had some company in front of me. I put him right behind the horse. At the sixteenth pole, I let him do it, then I had to slow him down a little bit. Todd [Pletcher] wanted to go an easy 49 and let him gallop out.”

Pletcher, who trains Palace Malice, called it “an excellent breeze. More of what he always does.”

Just before Palace Malice breezed, Pletcher sent out Graydar for a five-furlong workout over the training track that went in 1:01.32. Graydar, working outside of stablemate Clever Story, went his first three furlongs in 36.24 and got his last quarter in 25.08. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:15.58 and seven-eighths in 1:29.73 while being asked by his exercise rider.

“He’s a horse you have to ask a little bit, so we’ll continue to ask him a little bit and see what he says,” Pletcher said.

Graydar is trying to make the Classic despite having raced just once in the past seven months, that being a three-quarter-length victory in the Grade 2 Kelso Invitational at a mile Sept. 28.

“We’re trying to make the Classic,” Pletcher said. “We got a good five-eighths breeze into him today. We’re looking for a couple more solid breezes. So far, we’re doing as well as we can under the schedule we have.”

Graydar is expected to be pre-entered in the Dirt Mile as well.

In other works, trainer Chad Brown’s BC Turf duo of Real Solution and Big Blue Kitten went a half-mile in 50.39 seconds over the turf.

Brown also sent out Ready to Act for a four-furlong work in 50.82 over the Belmont turf course and is trying to get that horse into the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Ready to Act, who worked with 2012 Juvenile Fillies Turf runner-up Watsdachances, won her debut at Saratoga and was on her way to victory in the Grade 2 Natalma on Sept. 14 at Woodbine before she unseated her rider in deep stretch after shying away from the rider’s whip.

“My view is she was going to be an open-length winner of the Natalma,” Brown said. “It was unfortunate what happened. She spooked from something and didn’t get across the line. If there’s any way to get her in the race, I do believe she belongs.”

Brown has three other horses pointed to the Juvenile Fillies Turf: Testa Rossi, Granny Mc’s Kitten, and Kitten Kaboodle.

Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, worked four furlongs in 49.67 over the Belmont main track Sunday. It was his first work since he finished last in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

McGaughey, his trainer, said he still has no idea what happened in the Jockey Club and is training Orb toward a possible start in the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 30.