Disruption ships to California for fall campaign

Disruption, who finished ninth in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile in his last start, will be shipped to California this coming week and will make his next start at Santa Anita, trainer Monique Snowden said Friday. Snowden and owner Heidi Nelson had hoped to run Disruption in a one-mile allowance race Sunday at Emerald, but an anticipated rematch with the Longacres Mile winner, Stryker Phd, was scuttled when the race failed to fill.

Santa Anita-based trainer Kristin Mulhall will handle Disruption for what is expected to be a two-start fall campaign in Southern California.

“There’s a 6 1/2-furlong non-winners of four on the dirt down there,” Snowden said of Disruption’s next assignment. “If he does well, then we’ll look at a turf race for him after that. But it’s heartbreaking that the race here didn’t fill because he’s so sharp and doing great. I really felt we had a chance to give Stryker a run for his money this time.”

Disruption, a lightly raced 4-year-old by Street Boss, figures to begin the 2015 Emerald meeting as one of the Northwest’s leading handicap horses. He is all but guaranteed to be the best horse in Snowden’s barn. She has only a handful of horses, and all of them have run well this summer. Snowden has won with 7 of 21 starters at the meeting, a snappy 33 percent success rate.

“I think it has just been getting the pieces of the puzzle,” she said. “I enhanced my nutrition program this year. I got a new massager that I use all over their body. My horses are happy and wild and feel good. They’re not sore at all. And then this year, I implemented a new training style where I gallop ’em a mile and a half before they train. And I’ve had the right horses. I’ve had some horses who can run a little bit and had conditions. And then on top of all that, I’ve had some luck.”