Big Macher will be fresh for BC Sprint, again

ARCADIA, Calif. -- Big Macher will enter the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Sprint the same way he went in last year – as a fresh horse. This time, trainer Richard Baltas hopes he is not eliminated at the break. In the 2014 BC Sprint at Santa Anita, he stumbled at the break, trained for the first half-mile, and finished ninth.

“We’re going to work on that,” Baltas said Tuesday morning at Santa Anita, where Big Macher posted an easy 48-second half-mile workout under jockey Rafael Bejarano.

Although the gelding has won just one of three starts in 2015, he showed that he is back when he made his most recent start Sept. 7. Making his first start since finishing fifth in the Group 1 Golden Shaheen on March 28 in Dubai, Big Macher was favored at Del Mar in the $100,000 Pirate’s Bounty Stakes. He won despite a compromising trip.

“He broke slow, got left, and was nine wide,” Baltas said. He was exaggerating, but not by much. Big Macher’s 4 3/4-length win was among the most impressive of his career. His half-mile work Tuesday was his first work since the win.

A Grade 1 winner, Big Macher has a history of firing fresh. “All his best races have been off layoffs,” Baltas said, explaining the rationale for training into the Breeders’ Cup.

Claimed from his career debut in a $20,000 maiden-claiming race in summer 2013, Big Macher has won seven races and $684,038 from 17 starts.

Pretty N Cool might go in Alcibiades

The 2-year-old filly Pretty N Cool will skip the Grade 1 Chandelier Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita, and could be pointed to an out-of-town stakes. “I’m thinking of Keeneland,” trainer Bob Baffert said Tuesday, referring to the Grade 1 Alcibiades on Oct. 2.

Pretty N Cool, winner of the Grade 2 Sorrento and runner-up in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, worked five furlongs Tuesday at Santa Anita in 1:02.60. Workout times on Tuesday were slow.

The Chandelier Stakes, one of five Grade 1s at Santa Anita on Saturday, is led by Del Mar Debutante winner Songbird.