Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile: Fast pace would suit Point Piper

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer is hoping Point Piper will encounter the same racing conditions in the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 4 at Santa Anita as he did in August in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs. Point Piper won that two-turn race in a track-record time of 1:32.90.

“He had a huge race up there,” Hollendorfer said. “The racetrack was very fast, and the pace was very fast, and I think that on Breeders’ Cup Day, the racetrack is going to be very fast, and the pace is going to be very fast, so that might suit a horse like him going around two turns.”

Hollendorfer said Point Piper’s Longacres Mile effort sealed the decision to target the Breeders’ Cup. He had his final prep Oct. 8 in the Grade 2 Kelso at Belmont Park, finishing fourth in the one-turn-mile race. He will be moving back to two turns for the Dirt Mile.

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“All along, when we took him to places, we were hoping he’d show enough so he could run in the Dirt Mile,” Hollendorfer said. “That was the way the stable was thinking for quite a while, and he came through for us in Seattle. We weren’t sure about the one-turn mile in New York. He did okay.”

Point Piper was purchased privately in the summer of 2015 off a one-mile allowance win at Lone Star Park.

Point Piper is a son of Giant’s Causeway and the Sadler’s Wells mare Imagine, who won the Group 1 Epsom Oaks and the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas. Imagine has produced a Group 1 winner in Horatio Nelson.

“He has an outstanding pedigree,” said Hollendorfer, who co-owns Point Piper. “If we were to win a Grade 1, he would be quite valuable, especially for European breeders.”

Point Piper won the Harry F. Brubaker at a mile at Del Mar in his second start for his new connections and two months later ran second to Dortmund in the Big Bear, a one-mile race at Santa Anita.

Hollendorfer said Mario Gutierrez has the mount in the Breeders’ Cup.

◗ Runhappy is scheduled to fly out Sunday to Santa Anita for the Dirt Mile, said trainer Laura Wohlers. The champion sprinter of 2015 is based in Lexington, Ky., and has long been targeting the Dirt Mile.

“We’ll give him a couple of days to settle in, work the weekend before the race,” Wohlers said.

Runhappy had his penultimate work for the Breeders’ Cup on Wednesday at Keeneland, going a mile in 1:39.

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◗ Accelerate, who won his third straight race in last month’s Grade 2 Los Alamitos Derby, could turn up in the Dirt Mile.

“I’m kind of waiting to see what Frosted is going to do,” trainer John Sadler said this week.

Frosted has been under consideration for both the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Dirt Mile.

– additional reporting by Brad Free