Champ Pegasus to get a break

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Champ Pegasus, runner-up in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Turf, will be pointed to the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting and is unlikely to start again this year, trainer Richard Mandella said.

There was some consideration between Mandella and owner B. Wayne Hughes about sending Champ Pegasus to the Japan Cup on Nov. 28, but Mandella said that various factors, notably the relatively quick turnaround and a trans-Pacific journey, made that impractical.

“We were tinkering with it, but it won’t work out,” he said Sunday. “He’ll probably get a little freshener. He’s had a good campaign since the start of the year. We’ll spend the next few days coming up with a plan.”

Earlier this year, Champ Pegasus won the Del Mar Handicap and Clement Hirsch Turf Championship.

Champ Pegasus set the pace in the BC Turf and finished 1 1/4 lengths behind Dangerous Midge. Champ Pegasus had come from behind in previous starts, but Mandella told jockey Joel Rosario to take the lead if the 4-year-old colt broke well.

“I gave the jockey an open ticket,” Mandella said. “I was afraid if we took him back we’d get buried behind a slow pace and no one would go [to the lead]. I said, ‘We might as well let him gallop along’ and it almost worked.”