Cox hopes cutback leads to ideal trip for Touch of Fire
:quality(75))
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Brad Cox feels that Touch of Fire’s best races have come when he has a target to run at. This is the primary reason he will turn back his stakes-winning 3-year-old to a mile Friday at Saratoga in the $400,000 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes.
Touch of Fire, who set the pace before weakening to finish fourth going 1 1/8 miles in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby here on July 4, will be among the likely favorites in a field of nine 3-year-olds entered for the Grade 2 Hall of Fame on the inner turf. The group of entrants includes Bottas and Third Coast, the fifth- and sixth-place finishers in the Belmont Derby, along with Blinging It Back, Glavine, Arizona Territory, and Print, who ran second, third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, behind Heeere’s Johnny in the Saranac Stakes.
The remainder of the wide-open lineup consists of the Grade 3-placed pair of Immortalised and Vasy.
Touch of Fire led into the stretch before gradually succumbing through the final three-sixteenths in the Belmont Derby, finishing 1 1/4 lengths behind Title Role and West End Kid, who were separated by just a nose at the wire. That pair, along with third-place finisher Remember Mama, will return on Saturday in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby.
Touch of Fire had won three of his four previous starts before shipping to Saratoga, including the Audobon Stakes at Churchill Downs by three lengths after a perfect pace-stalking trip under jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. Touch of Fire, who has posted career-best 84 and 85 Beyer Speed Figures in his last two outings, will be reunited with Ortiz, who was forced to miss the Belmont Derby as a result of a riding suspension.
Cox noted that Touch of Fire’s only two losses in five starts came when he was loose on the early lead.
“I can’t give him a lot of excuses in his last start. He got a favorable trip and didn’t kick on as we’d hoped,” Cox said of the Belmont Derby. “And in his second start, which came at the Fair Grounds, you would have liked to have had a million dollars on him when he was in front at the quarter pole, and it was very disappointing when he did not stay on that time either.”
Although there isn’t a lot of speed signed on for the Hall of Fame, Cox is hopeful Ortiz can work out what he feels would be the ideal trip from off the early leaders.
“I just feel like he seems to finish up better with a target, and that by turning him back to a mile, the race will speed up a little more during the early stages,” Cox noted. “This race also appears to give him a better chance to get a graded stakes win than the other option, which would have been the Saratoga Derby.”
Bottas, who is cross-entered in the Saratoga Derby, and Third Coast finished a head apart in the Belmont Derby. Both raced within easy striking distance at midstretch but lacked the necessary response to keep pace with the leaders through the final furlong.
Bottas could be sitting on his best race yet making the third start of his current form cycle, having returned from an eight-month layoff to finishing third in the Grade 3 Pennine Ridge Stakes in his 3-year-old debut here on June 4. Third Coast will wear blinkers for the first time Friday and, like Touch of Fire and Bottas, earned a lifetime-best 85 Beyer for his effort in the Belmont Derby.
The top three finishers in the Saranac were separated by less than a length, with Blinging It Back surging to the lead near midstretch before being overtaken in the shadow of the wire by the last-to-first winner. Glavine, the tepid 5-2 favorite, found a seam on the rail to briefly join the leaders near the sixteenth pole, but he could not match strides with the top pair at the end.
Immortalised has proven a very consistent sort for trainer Brendan Walsh since stretching out around two turns for the first time this winter at Gulfstream Park. He has registered three wins and two seconds in his last five starts, his lone defeats during that period coming behind Alpyland in both the Penn Mile and then the American Derby at Churchill Downs.