Dr. Schivel turned out, won't make Breeders' Cup Sprint

DEL MAR, Calif. – Dr. Schivel, winner of the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar last summer and third in the Group 1 Golden Shaheen Sprint in Dubai in March, has been turned out until the autumn.

Trainer Mark Glatt said Sunday that Dr. Schivel has been sent to a local farm and will remain there until the first of October. The hope of a start in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 5 at Keeneland has been abandoned.

“To work through what he needed to get through, to have a legitimate shot at the Breeders’ Cup would be pushing it,” Glatt said.

“We decided to give him an extended rest,” he said. “No surgery and no major issues. We could have issues if we continue to press.”

Glatt said Dr. Schivel was diagnosed with bone bruising after the trip to Dubai.

“It was a hard trip on him,” Glatt said. “Right now, the plan is for him to come back and have a good 5-year-old campaign. That’s the plan now.”

A winner of 5 of 10 starts and $1,076,500, Dr. Schivel has won three stakes. He races for Red Baron’s Barn, Rancho Temescal, Bill Branch, and Reeves Thoroughbred Racing.

Dr. Schivel is a notable absentee from Saturday’s $400,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs. The race is the richest sprint in California this year, and the winner receives a fees-paid berth to the BC Sprint.

Glatt may run Howbeit, a $32,000 claim in February 2021 who later that year won an allowance race at Santa Anita and one at Del Mar. Howbeit has started once this year, but did not get far. He was the 3-5 favorite in the Oak Tree Sprint at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton on July 2, but stumbled at the start and unseated jockey Evin Roman.

“I wanted to use that race as a measuring stick for this race,” Glatt said.

The Bing Crosby Stakes has a probable field of eight, including American Theorem, Bagboss, Desmond Doss, Get Her Number, Good With People, Letsgetlucky, and Principe Carlo. American Theorem won the Grade 2 Triple Bend Stakes at seven furlongs on May 29 at Santa Anita.

The Bing Crosby is the first of two graded stakes for sprinters at the Del Mar summer meeting. The second race in the series is the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs on Aug. 27, and it may include the 8-year-old gelding C Z Rocket, winner of an allowance race Saturday.

Trained by Peter Miller, C Z Rocket rallied six wide from off the pace to win his first start since January.

“He’s awesome,” Miller said. “It was good to see the old man back in the winner’s circle. Not bad for an 8-year-old.”

Owned by Tom Kagele, Gary Barber, Madaket Stable, and Miller, C Z Rocket won the 2020 Pat O’Brien and has appeared in the last two runnings of the BC Sprint, finishing a well-beaten second to Whitmore at Keeneland in 2020 and seventh behind Aloha West at Del Mar last November.