LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint comes on the earlier side of Saturday’s card at Keeneland. “I’m glad it’s 12:30,” said trainer Joe Orseno, who will saddle Imprimis as one of the favorites in the race, the fifth of 12 on the card. “I don’t have to sit around all day.” Orseno had been waiting a long time for a horse like Imprimis, sixth in last year’s Turf Sprint at 11-1, to bring him back to the Breeders’ Cup with a major chance. But Orseno, 65, is no stranger to the sport’s biggest days, despite several years out of the spotlight. :: BREEDERS’ CUP 2020: See DRF’s special section with top contenders, odds, comments, news, and more for each division Orseno, a Philadelphia native, won his first race in 1977, but didn’t saddle his first stakes winner until 1986. He worked steadily, with modest success, for more than another decade until his big break. In 1997, Frank Stronach sent him a half-dozen horses at Monmouth Park. He was so impressed by Orseno’s work that in 1998 he hired him as a private trainer. That season, Orseno got his first Grade 1 victory, as Tap to Music won the Gazelle Stakes. After that, the milestones were checked off quickly for Orseno, with several of them coming in his career year of 2000. Red Bullet won the Preakness Stakes that year, and Orseno was lauded for his patient handling of the colt, a late bloomer who had won the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes and finished second in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial to Kentucky Derby favorite Fusaichi Pegasus. Orseno exercised the discipline to skip the Kentucky Derby with Red Bullet and train him up to the Preakness. Perfect Sting won five stakes on the season, highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Churchill Downs. Orseno saddled another winner on the day, as Macho Uno won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Both horses were honored with divisional Eclipse Awards and helped Stronach to a sweep of that year’s honors as outstanding owner and breeder. Orseno was a finalist for the trainer title, which ultimately went to Bobby Frankel. For good measure that season, Orseno also sent out Golden Missile, who after finishing third in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Classic won the Grade 1 Pimlico Special and Grade 2 Stephen Foster in 2000. Collect the Cash won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, giving Orseno back-to-back wins in that race following Perfect Sting’s win in 1999. “When I went on that run there with Stronach, those five years, and I was in [the Breeders’ Cup] almost every year, and won two of them, and was very competitive, I thought, ‘Geez, I’m going to be doing this every year,’ ” Orseno recalled. “And when you don’t get to come back, you realize what it’s about and what it takes.” Orseno reopened his public stable in 2002 and worked through some quieter years. After winning 53 stakes with Stronach from 1997 through 2002, he saddled 28 stakes winners from 2003 through the end of the 2017 season. Over those years, he was continuing to hone his craft – a process he says is never completed. “Training horses is not an exact science,” Orseno said. “You learn every day. There’s always something where you say, ‘Man, I didn’t know that.’ There’s always something that sparks and piques your interest, and you say, ‘Okay, I should do that.’ No matter who you talk to, you can talk to anybody and they’ll say something that’ll make sense. I’ve always been a good listener. “It takes a little bit of technique to have them ready on that big day, and over the years I’ve learned. And it’s about the horse, too.” In 2018, that horse walked into his barn. Imprimis began his career at age 4 with a pair of wins for breeder Craig Wheeler and trainer Tim Hills. He was privately purchased by Mike Hall and Sam Ross’s Breeze Easy LLC, and they sent him to Orseno. In just his second start for the new barn, the Broken Vow gelding rolled to a 5 1/4-length win in the Jim McKay Turf Sprint on soft ground at Pimlico. He added the Wolf Hill Stakes later that summer at Monmouth Park. Imprimis opened his 2019 campaign in fine fashion, winning the Silks Run Stakes at Gulfstream and the Grade 2 Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland. He traveled to the Royal Ascot meeting in England and was sixth in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes. Upon returning, he was fourth in the Grade 3 Runhappy Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs; third in the Grade 2 Woodford at Keeneland; and sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita. He was Orseno’s first Breeders’ Cup starter since 2002, and his first with an owner other than Stronach. This year, Orseno has exercised patience both in getting Imprimis back to the races and in progressing steadily through his prep races without squeezing the lemon dry prior to his ultimate goal. Imprimis had throat surgery following the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, and a second, similar, tie-back procedure when he began making noise while training earlier this year at Gulfstream. Orseno brought him back in the Grade 3 Troy Stakes on Aug. 8 at Saratoga. Imprimis showed he was ready to be a force in the division again, crossing the line 2 1/4 lengths in front, but was disqualified to third for interference in the stretch. “They can’t take the race away from him,” Orseno said. “They can take the first place away from him, but the race is what I needed. And that’s what we got out of it. It definitely moved him forward for the next race.” :: Play the Breeders’ Cup with DRF! Visit our Breeders’ Cup shop for Packages, PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more Orseno estimated that Imprimis was at about 85 percent of his peak for the Troy, and still wasn’t at his best when he won the Runhappy Turf Sprint on Sept. 12 at Kentucky Downs. “He got a little bit better for the Kentucky Downs race,” Orseno said. “I don’t think he was 100 percent peaked in that race, for sure. He came out of that, he was blowing a little bit. He needed that, for sure.” Imprimis will now come to the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint off an eight-week layoff, by design. Imprimis has spent the intervening weeks training at Orseno’s Gulfstream Park base, where he turned in his final breeze Oct. 24, earlier than several of the other candidates. Orseno planned to train him lightly the week of the Breeders’ Cup and to make use of Keeneland’s synthetic training track to take advantage of the quieter atmosphere. “Race week, this horse loves what we do, and I’ve figured that out and I know what he wants,” Orseno said. “I know what I don’t have to go out there and breeze him five days before in front of the public to show what kind of horse he is. We let the horse do what he needs to do. I know we’re doing enough with him. He’s ready.”