Belmont: Tizway delivers another good work toward Jockey Club Gold Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer James Bond flew home from the Keeneland sales Wednesday night, not getting to his Saratoga home until around midnight. Bond said he got about three hours of sleep before he got ready to go to his Gridley Street barn well before sunrise to make sure Tizway was the first horse to hit the Oklahoma track when it opened at 5:30 a.m.

Wanting to squeeze in a workout before forecasted rains came Thursday night, Bond watched Tizway drill five furlongs in 1:01.34 Thursday morning in preparation for his start in the $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park on Oct. 1. The work came just six days after Tizway went five furlongs in 1:01.26 on Sept. 9.

Saratoga clockers timed Tizway’s Thursday move in splits of 25.20 seconds for the opening quarter and 37.20 for three-eighths, meaning he came home in 24.24 for the final quarter. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:14.85. While the track was fast, it was considered dull.

“He worked fantastic,’’ Bond said by phone late Thursday morning. “When you’re lucky enough to train a horse like this, three hours [sleep] is easy. I feel like the luckiest man in the world to train this horse.’’

Tizway has worked four times since he won the Grade 1 Whitney Invitational at Saratoga and will have one more breeze prior to shipping to Belmont for the Gold Cup.

Bond said that Tizway has come out of the Whitney “as good as he could ever have come out of a race.’’

With victories in the Metropolitan Handicap and Whitney, Tizway has established himself as the leading older male horse on the East Coast, if not the country. In the Gold Cup, he will attempt to win at the 1 1/4-mile distance for the first time. He finished third to Summer Bird in the 2009 Jockey Club.