Cocked and Loaded returning in Bay Shore

Cocked and Loaded, the winner of the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs as a 2-year-old, will make his 3-year-old debut in Saturday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct, trainer Larry Rivelli said Sunday.

Cocked and Loaded has not run since finishing fifth, 3 3/4 lengths behind Nyquist, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Rivelli at one time was planning to run Cocked and Loaded in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. But Rivelli prefers the seven furlongs of the Bay Shore to the 1 1/8 miles of the Blue Grass.

“I think the distance is better for him at this point,” Rivelli said from Chicago, where Cocked and Loaded is based at Hawthorne. “I needed a couple of more works before I run him two turns.”

Rivelli said his plan is to run Cocked and Loaded in the Bay Shore, the Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs on May 7, and, if he runs one-two-three in either of those two races, the Preakness Stakes.

Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride Cocked and Loaded in the Bay Shore. Ortiz rode Cocked and Loaded to victory in the Tremont Stakes last June at Belmont as well as in the Breeders’ Cup.

Others pointing to the Bay Shore include Awesome Gent, a New York-bred gelding who has won three in a row; Unified, an impressive maiden winner at Gulfstream; King Kranz, Richie the Bull, and Sallisaw. Awesome Speed is possible.