Caracortado hopes to make comeback in optional claimer
DEL MAR, Calif. – Caracortado is entered Friday at Del Mar. One might normally say Caracortado is racing Friday at Del Mar, but why risk jinxing things? He’s gotten this far before in recent years, but repeated setbacks have kept him from the races.
Mike Machowsky, who bred, trains, and shares ownership of the popular gelding, is hopeful the nagging foot injuries that have kept Caracortado sidelined so often the past two years are being kept at bay. His right front foot has been problematic, but no issues have crept up recently, so it looks like Caracortado will be good to go in race 6 Friday, an optional claimer over five furlongs on turf.
Caracortado, now 7, has raced just once since January 2012, that start coming last September at Santa Anita, where he finished a close fourth in the Eddie D Stakes in what was hoped to be a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. He scored the biggest win of his career here in 2011 in the Del Mar Mile.
“He’s doing good,” Machowsky said. “We let his feet grow out quite a bit. He shed a frog two years ago. That’s why he was off then. Then he developed a quarter crack last fall. He’s always had an issue with the inside quarter of his right front foot. There’s still a patch there, but it’s grown down to the bottom of the hoof. He’s trained in bar shoes, but we took them off for his last work and he’s in his regular racing plates now. He’s been training great. He doesn’t take much to get ready. He gets a lot out of his gallops. He gets a lot of everything. He’s sure acting like he’s ready. He’s tested everyone’s patience, but he’s such a neat horse.”
Caracortado has won nine times in 20 starts, including four wins in nine grass races. He has been stakes placed three times in Grade 1 races and owns multiple stakes wins, but is probably best remembered now for his breathtaking last-to-first run in the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes on Santa Anita’s downhill turf course in January 2012.
This will be only the second time Caracortado has competed in a five-furlong turf sprint. He was fifth at the distance in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs in 2011. Because of his recent interruptions, that race is only the third line down in his past performances.