Belmont Park: Saginaw targets Saratoga

ELMONT, N.Y. - Saginaw emerged from his half-length victory in Saturday’s Affirmed Success Stakes here at Belmont Park “excellent,” according to trainer David Jacobson, who is now looking ahead to running the game 7-year-old gelding at Saratoga this summer.

“The race before took more out of him than this race,” said Jacobson, referring to a starter allowance race Saginaw won by a nose carrying 130 pounds on May 12.

The race Jacobson has circled in big ink on his calendar for Saginaw is the John Morrissey Stakes for New York-breds on Aug. 1. Saginaw won that race last year, bouncing back from a last-place finish in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap in his previous start.

Jacobson said the Morrissey was an important race to him personally because of “who John Morrissey was and what the race is all about.”

Jacobson hasn’t ruled out running Saginaw before the Morrissey, but did say he would keep him in races restricted to New York-breds.

“He’s a New York-bred, he’s supposed to run with New York-breds,” Jacobson said.