Disruption just getting started
AUBURN, Wash. – Disruption, full of himself following his strong effort in the Mt. Rainier Handicap last Sunday, will make his next start in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile, a buoyant Monique Snowden said Friday. Snowden has never saddled a stakes winner at Emerald Downs, but her stable star has the look of a legitimate contender in the Pacific Northwest’s $200,000 showcase.
The Longacres Mile is Aug. 24, and the timing could be ideal for Disruption, who pressed the pace in the 1 1/16-mile Mt. Rainier Handicap before tiring to finish third, 2 1/2 lengths behind the winner, Stryker Phd. Given the circumstances – Disruption had never raced around two turns and had started just one time over the previous 13 months – his effort was tremendous. It springboards him into the Longacres Mile, which Snowden said was the goal all along.
Ridden by Eliska Kubinova in the Mt. Rainier, Disruption rolled along though quick fractions while shadowing longshot pacesetter Dontmesswithkitten. Kubinova urged Disruption to the front past the furlong marker before Stryker Phd ranged up from the outside and the two horses made contact.
“Stryker came into him and bumped him twice,” Snowden said. “Eliska was trying to ask him to switch on his right lead. He was tiring, and between those two factors, he didn’t switch down the lane. But the mile fraction was 1:33 and 4, and he was on the lead.”
Disruption earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 87 in the Mt. Rainier. That would make him competitive in the Longacres Mile, but he’ll have to go faster to win it. Snowden is confident that we have yet to see Disruption’s best.
“My only fear is if they try to ship up 10 monsters from out of town, but barring that happening, we’re on to the Mile, and I think he’s going to be really tough,” Snowden said. “He’s going to have huge fitness gains from the Mt. Rainier, as well as experience gains. He had never gone two turns. The fact that he sat off the leader and rated and didn’t fight Eliska shows his incredible versatility.
“He went back to the track today, and he’s awesome,” Snowden said Friday. “He came out of the race so good.”
Disruption landed with Snowden over the winter when owner Heidi Nelson made a trainer change. Disruption had been sidelined since June 2013, when he ran second in the Auburn Handicap for trainer Blaine Wright. Nelson paid $90,000 for Disruption at a Florida sale in 2012, early in his 2-year-old year. Disruption, by Street Boss, won a maiden race for Wright at Golden Gate Fields in March 2013.
Disruption made a triumphant return to the races with a front-running victory in a first-level allowance sprint June 14. That was the totality of his prep work for the Mt. Rainier. Snowden now has four weeks to finish her fine-tuning for the Longacres Mile. Her plan is to take it low and slow.
“He’s got those old injuries in his knee and ankle, so I have to be careful to not train him too hard because he’ll get some inflammation in there,” she said. “I’ll do a lot of two-mile jogs with him, and when I gallop him, I’ll jog him a full mile and a half, and then stand for two or three minutes, and then gallop like a mile and a quarter, a mile and a half, or sometimes two miles. The mile and a half warm-up is the big thing. I’m not getting the body soreness that we’re seeing with a lot of these horses.
“We battled a bruised foot all spring long. I was really nervous going into that first sprint. I didn’t know what to expect. But he came through, and then he came through again. But you can only train ’em so hard; you can only do so much in the morning to get them fit without their legs falling off. The rest of the fitness they need to gain in the races, and he’s going to get so much out of the Mt. Rainier. And now he’s breathing fire. And now his feet are great, his legs look great ... it feels like a fairy tale right now.”