Compliance Officer shortens up in tough allowance

ELMONT, N.Y. – Technically, the $100,000 Astoria for juvenile fillies is the only stakes race on Saturday’s Belmont Park program. One could make a case that both the sixth and ninth races could be quasi-stakes events.

The sixth is a multi-conditioned $90,000 allowance race scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on turf and features three graded stakes winners trying to find their previous form. The ninth is a $75,000 New York-bred allowance scheduled for seven furlongs on turf and features a bevy of stakes winners in the statebred ranks.

It remains to be seen if both races stay on the turf, as heavy rains were forecast for Friday.

Trainer Bruce Brown appears to have both surfaces covered in the ninth, with Compliance Officer for turf and Readthebyline for dirt.

Brown claimed Compliance Officer in 2011, and in his first two starts for him, Compliance Officer won races at six and seven furlongs on the Belmont turf as part of a five-race winning streak. Compliance Officer later found success in route races, but Brown is returning him to a sprint distance Saturday, his second start of the year. In his first start, Compliance Officer finished fourth, beaten four lengths, in the Kingston Stakes, run at one mile.

“I was hoping for a race like this before the stakes,” Brown said Thursday at Belmont. “He seems different to me this year, very sharp, very much on the muscle. When he got on his run, we were running him shorter.”

Compliance Officer, an 8-year-old gelding by Officer, has won 12 of 35 starts. He has recorded seven of his 12 career victories at Belmont.

Compliance Officer will be running against Notacatbutallama, who is a graded stakes winner on turf and dirt. He finished fifth in the Kingston last out. Front, a winner of three straight races, and Strong Impact, the winner of the John McSorley Stakes at Monmouth on Sunday, are other contenders on turf.

Should the race come off the turf, Readthebyline would definitely be the horse to catch. Brown claimed him for $25,000 on May 7, when Readthebyline won a one-turn, one-mile race here by 6 1/2 lengths, earning a 108 Beyer Speed Figure.

Brown said after he claimed Readthebyline that he was thinking of running him back May 31 on New York Showcase Day but feared the horse would bounce off such a huge effort.

West Hills Giant, another dual-surface stakes winner, makes his 4-year-old debut in this spot for trainer John Terranova. West Hills Giant won a Stallion Stakes race on turf going seven furlongs here last June. At 2, he won the New York Breeders’ Futurity on dirt.

“He had a lot of hard races last year, so we gave him the winter off,” said Tonja Terranova, the wife and assistant of John. “He’s been breezing pretty well, he’s filled out and grew up a lot. We haven’t really crunched on him really hard, so he might need a race.”

In the sixth, the Terranovas send out Swift Warrior, who won three stakes on turf in 2013 but finished seventh in the Grade 3 Fort Marcy on May 3. Earlier this year, he finished third in the Harrison Johnson Memorial on dirt at Laurel Park.

Other turf stakes winners in the field include Infinite Magic, last year’s Grade 3 American Derby winner, and Slim Shadey, the Grade 2 San Marcos winner.

If on dirt, Dawly and Irsaal become the logical horses to beat.