Breeders' Cup Sprint: Masochistic to enter fresh
Despite being the final Win and You’re In test for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Saturday’s Santa Anita Sprint Championship has a surprisingly short field led by division leader Lord Nelson, with the speedy Grade 1 winner Masochistic among the most notable defections from the race.
Trainer Ron Ellis opted to bypass the Sprint Championship and train Masochistic up to the Breeders’ Cup, where he’ll make his first start in 11 weeks since cruising to victory in the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien at Del Mar.
“He’s always shown that he runs best when fresh,” said Ellis. “Everything has gone absolutely according to plan since the race at Del Mar. I couldn’t be happier. He’s already had three works and will probably have four more prior to the Breeders’ Cup.”
Masochistic ran fourth after contesting a wicked pace in last year’s Santa Anita Sprint Championship and then finished a distant 14th four weeks later at Keeneland in the BC Sprint.
“He came out of the Breeders’ Cup last year with a hairline fracture in his right hind cannon bone,” said Ellis. “We didn’t have to do surgery. He took 90 days off and has come back like a monster. He’s absolutely better now than a year ago. The time off did his whole system good, aside from healing his leg.
“We went back to Square 1 with him, and he’s really responded. He’s so different now, so relaxed. He used to run angry, with his ears pinned, as fast as he could go for as far as he could go. His first race back this year, he had his ears straight up in the air, which indicates he’s saving energy more.”
Ellis also feels he has a home-court advantage this year, as opposed to last year, when having to ship Masochistic to Kentucky for the Sprint. Masochistic has won four of five starts at Santa Anita, although his lone Grade 1 win did come at Del Mar in the Bing Crosby during the summer of 2015.
The Sprint Championship is one of two BC Challenge races for the Sprint this weekend, along with the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland. A. P. Indian is a late addition to the Phoenix field and will be the odds-on favorite after being scratched from the Grade 1 Vosburgh due to a muddy racetrack last Saturday at Belmont Park.
Joking gained an automatic berth in the Sprint by virtue of his victory in the Vosburgh and is being pointed in that direction, according to trainer Charlton Baker. The Sprint status of Stallwalkin’ Dude and X Y Jet, the second- and fourth-place finishers in the Vosburgh, remained up in the air as of Wednesday.
X Y Jet finished fourth as the favorite after contesting a very fast pace in the six-furlong Vosburgh, his first start since a second-place finish in the Dubai Golden Shaheen four months earlier.
“It was a tough race off the layoff. I never thought he’d have to run that fast,” trainer Jorge Navarro said. “He came out of the race well, but we still haven’t made a firm decision about whether he’ll run in the Sprint or not.”
Favorite Tale, who finished third in the 2015 Sprint, has been entered in an allowance race at Parx on Saturday as a prep for the Sprint, according to trainer Guadalupe Preciado. Favorite Tale has started just once in 2016, finishing third in an allowance race at Parx on March 21.
– additional reporting by Jim Dunleavy