Casse takes the edge off Untitled with easy optional-claiming win

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - At first glance, Saturday’s $75,000 Unbridled Stakes seemed like the next logical local opportunity for Untitled coming off his second-place finish seven weeks earlier in the Grade 3 Gotham. Instead, trainer Mark Casse opted for a lesser endowed but far easier spot, last Thursday’s main event, an entry-level optional-claiming race restricted to Florida-breds which Untitled won as easy as he pleased by 3 3/4 lengths as the overwhelming 1-9 favorite.

“To be honest, I thought about the stakes on Saturday for about one second,” Casse quipped by phone from his farm in Ocala on Friday. “I brought him to Ocala and backed off him a little after the Gotham because he’d run three times in five weeks. But he was doing so good, I said to Gary [co-owner Gary Barber] there’s a one-other-than Florida-bred race that looks like a real good spot for him and he agreed that was the right place to run.

“My only regret is that we didn’t draw an outside post, because I would have liked to have taken him back and teached him to rate a little more. We just couldn’t do that from the rail.”

Untitled, who Barber purchased privately following his 11-length debut win here in December and owns in partnership with Michael Sebastian, did rate and rally from off the pace before finishing second, two lengths behind Mischevious Alex, in the one mile Gotham. His only try around two turns came three weeks earlier when he finished second to the highly regarded 3-year-old prospect Gouverneur Morris, in an entry-level optional claimer at Tampa Bay Downs.

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“I really love this horse, he’s one of my favorites,” said Casse. “He’s really grown into a beautiful horse. I think he’s just classic. The 88 Beyer he got yesterday was good, he couldn’t have done it any easier, and Luis [Saez] seemed to be impressed. He said whenever he asked, he took off again.

“It should set him up nicely whenever something opens up. Distance-wise, I really don’t know what to think, but at some point I feel like we have to try him around two turns again. When that might be, I’m not sure.”

Casse, who has been riding out the coronavirus pandemic on his farm in Ocala, also said he has a race circled in the book for War of Will’s next start, the $75,000 Sunshine Forever on the turf here on April 9. War of Will has been idle since his ninth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Classic and is working bullets over both the turf and dirt at Palm Meadows in recent weeks.

“I’m working harder at the moment than normally right now, the majority of our horses are in Ocala,” said Casse. “Normally a large number of these would be in Toronto by this time. Hopefully, they’ll start opening up the rest of the country at some point soon, especially seeing how Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs have done such a wonderful job showing it can be done.”