Catch a Flight, Moreno clash in Gold Cup
ARCADIA, Calif. – There’s a new rivalry in town, and it will be on display Saturday in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita.
Catch a Flight vs. Moreno is not quite Shared Belief vs. California Chrome, but it is what remains out West, where the handicap division has dissolved. Shared Belief is on the sidelines, while California Chrome missed a start in England and heads next to Arlington.
Their replacements are Catch a Flight and Moreno, one-two in the Californian Stakes and the principals in an 11-horse field that will race 1 1/4 miles in the Gold Cup. The $500,000 race seemed an ambitious goal for Catch a Flight when he arrived last year from Brazil.
“I didn’t know what to think,” trainer Richard Mandella said. “He’d won [five] allowance races, which was nice, but I didn’t know what it meant. I was just open-minded.”
[bc_playlist_id:234444:]What happened over the six-month Santa Anita season was that the division leaders withdrew, while Catch a Flight improved. He won an allowance second start back, finished third in the Santa Anita Handicap, then won two stakes.
It is enough to make Catch a Flight the Gold Cup favorite against an eclectic field, including Moreno, the vastly improved Cal-bred Motown Men, the Grade 1 winner Hoppertunity, and four trained by Peter Miller, including the Grade 1 turf winner Finnegans Wake.
The Gold Cup is race 9 of 10 and will be preceded by three stakes. The Grade 3 Senorita for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on turf is race 6, and Curlin’s Fox looks tough; the Grade 1 Triple Bend at seven furlongs is race 7, with Masochistic favored; and the Grade 2 Royal Heroine for fillies and mares at a mile on turf is race 8, and Blingismything figures prominently.
As for the Gold Cup, Moreno enters in top form. He ran second in the Santa Anita Handicap, a head in front of Catch a Flight, finished third in a Grade 2 at Fair Grounds, and upset the Charles Town Classic. Last out, Moreno finished a half-length behind Catch a Flight.
The challenge for Moreno is pace. He runs best on the lead, but the frontrunners Batti Man, Big Cazanova, and Majestic City make for a crowded front end. Eric Guillot, who trains Moreno, said he hopes for a pressing trip similar to his Californian second.
“Hopefully he does the same thing, just wait a little longer,” Guillot said. “What I’m hoping is Big Cazanova can carry us a little farther, and we get first run.”
The Gold Cup, a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup, also includes Hard Aces, Poshsky, and Lideris.
Key contenders
Catch a Flight (Last 3 Beyers: 106-102-105)
* Gary Stevens will ride Catch a Flight, described by Mandella as “an average-size, good-looking horse that is very kind and nice-mannered.”
* Catch a Flight won the Grade 3 Precisionist at 1 1/16 miles and the Grade 2 Californian at 1 1/8 miles.
“I don’t think distance makes a lot of difference to him, a mile or a mile and a quarter,” Mandella said.
* Catch a Flight has eight wins and two thirds from 10 starts on dirt.
Moreno (Last 3 Beyers: 105-105-93)
* Moreno has won four races and $2,966,940 from 27 starts.
“He hasn’t missed many big dances,” Guillot said.
* The gelding is the all-time highest earner sired by Ghostzapper. Moreno’s résumé includes a second in the 2013 Travers and an upset last summer in the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga.
* Cornelio Velasquez rides Moreno, who drew outside his pace rivals. Though he could lose ground, he prefers to run outside horses.
* Moreno is based at Los Alamitos. He was to ship Friday to Santa Anita.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 8 Moreno. Trainer Eric Guillot is 52-1-8-3 with a $0.27 ROI over the past five years in dirt routes at Santa Anita. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
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Motown Men (Last 3 Beyers: 89-98-103)
* An upset candidate is Motown Men, claimed from a March turf race by trainer Ted H. West for $40,000.
“I thought with his running style, he’d be a little more effective on the dirt,” West said. “As soon as we got him, he started blossoming physically.”
* In his first start for West, Motown Men won a second-level allowance in April. He then ran third in the Grade 3 Precisionist and won a Cal-bred stakes last out, despite being caught wide early and rallying inside on the far turn. He has trained superbly since.
Hoppertunity (Last 3 Beyers: 97-94-95)
* Third two weeks ago in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, Hoppertunity habitually improves second start back. Martin Garcia rides Hoppertunity, the only Gold Cup Day starter for trainer Bob Baffert.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 2 Hard Aces. Trainer John Sadler is 14-6-0-2 with a $3.05 ROI over the past five years in dirt route graded stakes at Santa Anita in the second start following a layoff. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan