Casa Creed takes on up-and-comer Carl Spackler in Poker Stakes
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – As a consistent multiple Grade 1 winner here, Casa Creed has been dubbed “the Mayor of Saratoga.” But Carl Spackler is running for office. Perfect in two graded stakes at the Spa last summer, Carl Spackler meets Casa Creed for the first time in Saturday’s Grade 3, $350,000 Poker Stakes at a mile on the inner turf.
Carl Spackler won the Grade 2 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Stakes at a mile on the inner turf last summer and then won the Grade 3 Saranac Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on the same course. A bout with colic in the fall put him on the shelf.
Fully recovered, Carl Spackler returned from an eight-month layoff to win the Opening Verse Stakes at a mile on May 2 at Churchill Downs. The 4-year-old colt came with a wide bid and brushed with pacesetter Talk of the Nation late before besting that one by a head.
“I thought maybe he’d feel that layoff at the end, but he found more,” trainer Chad Brown said. “I was really impressed with that effort there, and he’s doing super.”
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Both of Carl Spackler’s Saratoga races were on turf labeled good. He has never run on a course softer than that. Rain was expected in Saratoga on Thursday, and a spotty forecast for Friday and Saturday might give the turf little opportunity to dry. Brown said Carl Spackler will keep playing even if the heavy stuff comes down.
“I think we’re good there,” Brown said. His sire “seems pretty versatile, Lope de Vega, with soft turf, and [Carl Spackler] seems much in line with the majority of his offspring. He should be okay.”
Brown also entered Kubrick in the Poker, but he is a less certain quantity. The French Group 3 winner was most recently sixth in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile on yielding Keeneland turf.
“The big concern is the weather for him,” Brown said. “On firm turf, the horse trains like he’s up to this level, for sure, and then he caught some soft turf [at Keeneland] and he did not care for it. If the course is too soft or something, I probably won’t run him.”
The 8-year-old multimillionaire Casa Creed was Grade 2-placed in his only start on yielding turf, back in 2019, and is a Grade 1 winner on good turf. While he is a two-time winner of the Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes sprinting at Belmont, he has become a fan favorite in Saratoga, winning the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap at a mile on the inner turf, and two other graded stakes.
“He gets a hold of it, I guess,” trainer Bill Mott said. “He’s always done well up here.”
After winning last year’s Fourstardave, Casa Creed was a strong third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, beaten just a half-length by Master of The Seas and Mawj. In his first start of 2024, he was sixth in the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint at Meydan in late March.
Talk of the Nation set the pace in the Opening Verse, his first start for Todd Pletcher after previously running for Shug McGaughey. A similar run from him could benefit Carl Spackler and Casa Creed, both of whom would like to aim at a target.
Globe-trotting Mysterious Night, part of the always dangerous Charlie Appleby contingent, could add pressure to Talk of the Nation. A Grade 1 winner in Canada and a group stakes winner in France and Dubai, the gelding has made one prior appearance at Saratoga, showing some foot early in the Hall of Fame last year before fading to seventh.
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