Dubai Sky nominated to Triple Crown series after Spiral triumph

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Mott was in New York on Sunday morning and will be on his way to Dubai on Monday. But he may now have a reason to put Kentucky on his itinerary for the first Saturday in May.

Mott is the trainer of Dubai Sky, who on Saturday won the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface and earned enough points to get into the May 2 Kentucky Derby if his connections want to run.

Dubai Sky was not among the 429 3-year-olds nominated for a fee of $600 by the first deadline, Jan. 17. He will be made eligible for a fee of $6,000 by his owners, Three Chimneys Farm and Benjamin Leon’s Besilu Stables, before that deadline passes Monday, Mott said.

“We’re going to [nominate] him, and the horse will go right to Churchill, and he’ll train there, and if he trains really good there, then we’ll have a look at it,” Mott said Sunday morning.

Dubai Sky is a son of Candy Ride out of the dam House of Danzing. That makes him a full brother to Twirling Candy, who was a graded stakes winner on turf, dirt, and synthetic. In December 2010, in his first start on dirt, Twirling Candy won the Grade 1 Malibu, a seven-furlong race. He also won the Grade 2 Strub at 1 1/8 miles on dirt.

Dubai Sky had raced exclusively on turf before Saturday. After losing his debut at Saratoga, Dubai Sky won three consecutive turf races.

Mott said he was on an airplane “probably over North Carolina” when the Spiral was run. When Mott turned on his phone after landing in New York, he had about a dozen congratulatory text messages.

“I thought he ran well, got a good trip for being in the 12 hole,” said Mott, who watched the replay Saturday night. “Look at the angle from where he broke. The speed went on, and he was able to tuck in, and he had a good trip.”

Dubai Sky received a 92 Beyer Speed Figure for the Spiral. The last horse to win the Kentucky Derby coming out of the Spiral was Animal Kingdom, who was making his first start on dirt in the 2011 Derby.

Mott, based at Payson Park in Florida all winter, was at Belmont on Sunday to watch his New York contingent train. He was scheduled to leave Monday morning for Dubai, where he will run Lea in Saturday’s $10 million Dubai World Cup.

Among those New York-based horses is Tiz Shea D, the runner-up in the Grade 3 Gotham in his first start for Mott after being privately purchased by Adam Wachtel, Nils Brous, and Gary Barber.

On Sunday, Mott got his first in-person look at Tiz Shea D, who worked four furlongs in 47.90 seconds.

The work got a little messed up when Tiz Shea D and his partner, Rectify, got hooked up with a pair of Chad Brown-trainees also working a half-mile. Tiz Shea D went his opening quarter in 23 seconds.

“We didn’t plan on getting hooked up with those others. As a result, they wound up going a little quicker early in the work,” Mott said. “They went along pretty well. It was a little more than I was looking for.”

In addition to being a late nominee to the Triple Crown series, Tiz Shea D will be nominated to the Wood Memorial and Blue Grass, both Grade 1 races run April 4. He also will be nominated to the Grade 3, $400,000 Illinois Derby on April 18. The Illinois Derby does not carry any Kentucky Derby points, but it might be the more logical choice.

“He’s probably a horse that just by the fact that he got such a late start, he’s probably meant more for those races later on I would think,” Mott said. “I would think the Illinois Derby would be a great race for him.”

A decision on where he will run probably won’t be made until after he works again next week and the fields for the Wood and Blue Grass become more certain, Wachtel said.

“This is my home track. I’d love to run here, but if it’s just way tougher than some of our other options, you have to do what’s right for the horse,” Wachtel said. “Ideally, you’d like to consider giving him a chance to get to the Derby. We think he’s that kind of talent. But he’s only run twice. We’re up against it a little bit. We’re going to take a serious look at the Wood and Blue Grass. Hopefully, one of those two makes some sense.”