Capture the Call looks for real

ALBANY, Calif. - If Capture the Call handles his racing debut as well as he has handled training leading up to his first start, Golden Gate Fields racing fans may see a potential star on Sunday.

Capture the Call is one of several good 2-year-old prospects running in a six-furlong maiden race that could prove a key race in the future. The race drew an overflow of 13 entries.

Capture the Call, the first foal of stakes-placed Lake Charles, who earned $110,975 in her career, is by the multiple graded-stakes winner Elusive Quality, whose first-timers win at a rate of better than 16 percent.

"He's done everything right," trainer Terry Knight said. "Things come easily to him. He's got a terrific mind. He's very willing to do what is asked of him."

Since arriving at the track, Capture the Call has 10 works since Sept. 30, never missing a beat. Five of the works have been at six furlongs, including his final prep, a 1:12.80 work in his first try over the Golden Gate Fields synthetic Tapeta surface.

Knight has not rushed the colt, who was a $100,000 purchase at Ocala last March.

"You try to expose them to as much as you can in the morning, but the morning is different than the afternoon," he said. "We've asked him to do a lot of things, and he's done them professionally and within himself."

Knight says that fitness will not be an issue, and that he has given the colt the longer works for a reason.

"When you're dealing with young horses, anyone who runs in a maiden allowance race thinks he has a little more than an ordinary horse," he said. "You have to get plenty of bottom into them. If you run a maiden $8,000 or $12,500, some of them are ready to give it up at the head of the lane, but maiden allowance runners are just getting ready to run."

Knight calls himself "cautiously optimistic" and says he "definitely thinks the colt has a future."

But he knows that what happens in the morning doesn't always translate into afternoon success.

He also knows Capture the Call, one of five first-timers in the race, will need to run well to win.

Salt Flat Speed ran second to entrymate Saipan in his debut, showing good stalking speed and getting the lead in the lane before getting passed by a highly regarded runner.

Searchforthetruth, a $185,000 purchase from the same Ocala sale as Capture the Call, showed vast improvement in his second start and has worked nicely since then.

Skoal Ring was closing nicely behind Salt Flat Speed in his debut and will like the extra distance here.