Correas making plans for stable stars

On Sunday at Saratoga, Blue Prize missed winning the Summer Colony Stakes by a nose, a tough beat that her trainer, Ignacio Correas, watched from across the country. Correas had traveled to Del Mar, where he saddled the Argentine import Le Ken in his U.S. debut, the Del Mar Mile.

Correas still was in California on Monday, but Tuesday he was flying to New York to run another horse at Saratoga. All this, and Correas’s main string is stabled at Keeneland, with a satellite string at Arlington.

“It’s good to be busy,” said Correas, whose operation has expanded rapidly the last year.

Back at Keeneland, Correas will meet with the stable star, the mare Dona Bruja, who dead-heated for second with Grand Jete behind victorious Dacita on Aug. 12 in the Grade 1, $600,000 Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington. Dona Bruja, Correas said, came out of the Beverly D. in good shape and will most likely be turned back in distance to one mile in the Grade 1 First Lady at Keeneland in October.

“I think she can go back to a mile no problem, and I don’t want to ship her,” Correas said. “She’ll keep jogging this week and go back to regular training next week.”

Correas thinks Dona Bruja, who had won the Mint Julep and the Modesty in her two previous races this summer following her importation from Argentina, could have won the Beverly D. with a slightly different trip. Dona Bruja raced three wide around the turn and moved toward the lead at about the three-eighths pole, much earlier than in the Modesty, where she made her run in deep stretch.

Dona Bruja, an Argentine-bred by Storm Embrujado, is not nominated to the Breeders’ Cup, and it would cost her connections $200,000 to get her into a Breeders’ Cup race this year. No decisions have been made, Correas said, on anything beyond the First Lady.

Also back at Keeneland is Kasaqui, who was second in the 2016 Arlington Million but finished ninth in this year’s edition. Kasaqui was beaten only a little more than three lengths, however, and did not have clear passage in the race.

“The last eighth there was a wall in front of him,” said Correas, who plans to give Kasaqui two more starts this year.

Blue Prize ran a winning race in the Summer Colony at Saratoga but could not quite fend off heavily favored Verve’s Tale. A Grade 1 winner last year in Argentina, Blue Prize had fallen far behind the early pace in her first two starts this season, and Correas was pleased that the addition of blinkers and a change in training produced the desired affect.

“We added a little more speed, shortened her gallops up and put more speed in her works,” Correas said. “I’m very happy with the way she ran.”

Blue Prize returns to Keeneland this week, and Correas said the rest of her campaign will be plotted after he meets up with the mare. One race that could make sense is the Grade 1 Spinster at Keeneland, Blue Prize’s home track.

Le Ken, meanwhile, never factored in the Del Mar Mile, finishing fifth, but his race was far from terrible, and Le Ken, making his first start since December and first in North America, should improve.

“He was rank the first quarter and wide, never got to relax properly, and didn’t cut the corners well, so there’s some work to do,” Correas said. “But he’s still young, and I’m very excited about what he has in front of him.”

Fault breaks through for Lovell

Trainer Michell Lovell’s 2017 season began terribly. Her Fair Grounds string sat at the epicenter of the EHV-1 outbreak there this winter, and that situation basically ruined the first several months of her year.

But things were looking far, far better on Aug. 12 at Arlington after Fault won the Grade 3 Pucker Up. Lovell has been training on her own since 2003, and Fault provided the first graded stakes win of her career after 13 defeats.

“It was truly exciting. I had a lot of confidence in her, but to win on the Arlington turf course on Million Day, that was awesome,” Lovell said.

Mark Martinez’s Agave Racing Stable claimed Fault for $50,000 in May at Churchill Downs. The filly, by Blame, finished second three times before breaking through in the Pucker Up. Lovell said Fault is being considered for three upcoming races – the Sands Point at Belmont, the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs, and the Indiana Grand Stakes at Indiana Downs, the least likely spot for her next start.