Dream Maker looks like Casse's newest Derby prospect

NEW ORLEANS – On balance, Saturday turned out all right for the trainer Mark Casse.

Early in the morning, Casse watched Lecomte Stakes-winner War of Will turn in a sharp half-mile work for his engagement here Feb. 16 in the Risen Star Stakes. Tot that up in the “good thing” column.

A few hours later, the Fair Grounds racing office drew the Feb. 16 card and War of Will landed post 14, a dreadful draw, for the Risen Star. Not so good

But fast forward to mid-afternoon, and there went the Casse-trained 3-year-old Dream Maker running circles around five foes in a first-level two-turn dirt allowance race. He won by 8 1/2 lengths and Dream Maker’s final time of 1:44.10 for 1 1/16-miles yielded an 89 Beyer Speed Figure that, if anything, seems conservative. The Fair Grounds main track has produced slow-ish times throughout this season and was by no means fast Saturday.

Figures aside, Dream Maker got a right-handed, then left-handed pop from Florent Geroux in upper stretch before widening his advantage to the finish, proceeding to gallop out like another couple of furlongs of actual racing would only serve to stoke his fire.

All this in Dream Maker’s first start since a 12th-place finish Oct. 6 in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland.

“He looked wonderful this morning,” Casse said Sunday afternoon. “I had a good conversation with [owner John] Oxley this morning, and right now the plan is to go to the Tampa Bay Derby. That’s just because of the timing. It’s four weeks and that’d give us time to go on to the Blue Grass.”

The Tampa Bay Derby is March 9, the Blue Grass scheduled for April 6.

Dream Maker won his debut last June at Churchill Downs and was regarded as potentially the best 2-year-old in the loaded Casse stable. But he bruised a foot at Saratoga, which cost him an intended start in the Sanford Stakes, finished a one-paced fifth in the Grade 1 Hopeful, and was eliminated in the Breeders’ Futurity by serious trouble at the start that led to a horseshoe being pulled off. Casse took Dream Maker back to Florida, regrouped, and watched the colt blossom and mature through late fall and early winter.

“He went from a teenager who’s six-foot and 140 pounds to six-foot and 200 pounds.”

Dream Maker is by Tapit, whose offspring can be difficult to manage psychologically, but Dream Maker “has a wonderful temperament,” Casse said.

An Oxley homebred, Dream Maker is out of the mare To Dream About, who is by Monarchos, Oxley’s Kentucky Derby winner. Dream Maker’s second dam is Beautiful Pleasure, a multiple Grade 1-winning monster Oxley campaigned.

Casse said Dream Maker would be stabled at Fair Grounds for a couple of more weeks before moving to the Casse Training Center in Ocala, Fla., and shipping from there to race at Tampa Bay.

Still, Dream Maker is one stakes win behind stablemate War of Will, whose Lecomte win planted him in firmly on the Derby trail. War of Will went a half-mile Saturday in 47.20 under assistant trainer David Carroll’s son, the Fair Grounds-based jockey Declan Carroll, and “could’ve gone faster if we hadn’t slowed him at the eighth pole,” Casse said.

With Kingly already a known Risen Star scratch, War of Will at worst breaks from post 13, and Casse hopes the wide draw in the end is overcome by the colt’s ability.

“My thought when it happened was if he’s as good as we think he is, it won’t matter,” said Casse.