Book'em Danno looks to go back-to-back in Forego

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. –Although trainer Derek Ryan has taken a different route to get him to the race this season, reigning sprint champion Book’em Danno will be back in Saratoga on Saturday to defend the title he won in popular fashion a year earlier in the $500,000 Forego Stakes. The Grade 1 Forego will be decided at seven furlongs and is a designated Breeders’ Cup Challenge race for the Dirt Mile.

The Forego drew a field of eight, including Banishing, who will scratch to run Friday in the Charles Town Classic.

Book’em Danno came into last year’s renewal of the Forego off victories in the Grade 3 True North and Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt stakes. He also won the True North earlier this season, upsetting 2025 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Bentornato in the process, but then bypassed the Vanderbilt in lieu of staying home to capture the Mr. Prospector Stakes at Monmouth Park as a prep for the Forego.

“The owners are local, they put up a race for him at Monmouth Park, so we decided to stay there instead and I got what I wanted out of him that day,” Ryan explained. “He’s been running hard for a long time, and I felt it would be an easier spot than coming back to Saratoga for the Vanderbilt, even though that race wound up not coming up as tough as I figured it might.”

Ryan said Book’em Danno couldn’t be doing better coming into the Forego, which he noted would be his star’s final prep before the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.

“He had a super work a couple of weeks ago” – five furlongs in 1:00.60 at Monmouth – “he’s good to go,” Ryan said. “And he loves Saratoga. He’s only been beaten once in six starts over that track, and that was when he got caught on a dead rail a couple of years ago.”

Ryan was referring to Book’em Danno’s third-place finish behind Domestic Product in the 2024 Allen Jerkens.

“This will be the third straight year he’s run up there on Travers Day, and that’s pretty hard to do. You don’t see that too often, nowadays,” said Ryan, who will again have the services of jockey Paco Lopez aboard Book’em Danno on Saturday.

Three of Book’em Danno’s six rivals in the Forego, Tip Top Thomas, Senior Officer, and Hymn, posted lifetime-best 100 Beyer Speed Figures in their most recent starts and figure to be the prime upset candidates should the favorite prove vulnerable.

Tip Top Thomas, a Grade 3 winner around two turns at 3, was very impressive despite being narrowly beaten by Senior Officer returning from a near nine-month layoff to make his 2026 debut in a conditioned allowance here on July 26. He did all the dirty work on the lead before being overtaken by the winner in late stretch to drop a neck decision in a promising effort for trainer Todd Pletcher.

“I thought his last race was a very good one, he’s been training well since, so we decided to give it a shot in here,” Pletcher said. “He should move forward off that last race, although [Book’em Danno] is going to be a tough horse to beat. Obviously, we’re not crazy about drawing the one-hole, but it looks like he could be the speed of the race, so we’ll let him come out of there and see what happens.”

Senior Officer not only brings a three-race win streak into his stakes debut, he’s proven to be game under fire having won his last two starts by a nose and a neck over the local strip. With his regular jockey, Irad Ortiz Jr., sidelined by injury, Senior Officer will be ridden by Luis Saez.

“First time facing stakes company, but he’s a nice horse and we’re looking forward finding out what caliber of graded horse he is,” said Blake Cox, assistant to his father, trainer Brad Cox. “We think he should sit a good trip. Luis should fit him. They’ll probably run away from him a little bit and hopefully he’ll come get ’em.”

Hymn was second best, beaten 2 1/2 lengths by the favorite Built, in the Vanderbilt four weeks ago for trainer Ron Moquett. The setback snapped a three-race win streak that included a victory in the De Francis Memorial Dash four weeks earlier at Laurel. Both of those races were at six furlongs, although he did win a allowance event going seven furlongs at Churchill during the spring.

Crazy Mason finished third against a loaded field in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Sprint on May 2 and was being pointed toward the Vanderbilt here last month. But trainer Gregg Sacco decided to take him out of consideration for the race when “not seeing what he wanted” from his horse after putting blinkers on the Grade 2 winner in his final work for the event.