Contessa pleased with six-furlong work from Sippican Harbor

ELMONT, N.Y. – Sippican Harbor, the Grade 1 Spinaway winner, worked a solid six furlongs in 1:13.81 Monday morning over Belmont Park’s training track as she continues preparations for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs.

Sippican Harbor, under exercise rider M.C. Brock, worked alongside the juvenile stakes winner Maiden Beauty. The pair went their first three furlongs in 35.84 seconds. Sippican Harbor went from the quarter pole to the wire in 24.79 seconds, finishing slightly in front, and completed six furlongs a furlong past the wire. Sippican Harbor galloped out through seven furlongs in 1:27.44 and a mile in 1:42.52.

“She’s just so good right now,” trainer Gary Contessa said. “She just keeps going. She takes a deep breath at the wire and she gallops out just as good as she works.”

It was Sippican Harbor’s third work since the Spinaway, a race in which she defeated Restless Rider by two lengths. Restless Rider came back to win the Grade 1 Alcibiades last Friday at Keeneland.

Brock is a former jockey who resides in Saratoga and works for Contessa when he keeps horses at that track from the spring through the end of the meet. Brock currently works for trainer James Bond, but drives down to Belmont specifically to work Sippican Harbor. She will also accompany the horse to Kentucky when the filly ships later this month.

“She’s the only rider who’s ever gotten on her,” Contessa said. “Why mess it up?”

Brock said Sippican Harbor is getting “better and better.”

“When I came down a few weeks ago, she went in 1:03 and I felt like I was just galloping,” she said.

Contessa said he will have Sippican Harbor do the bulk of her training at Belmont, and that she may have a blowout at Churchill Downs the week of the Breeders’ Cup depending on when she ships.