SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - After celebrating his 70th birthday and Elite Power’s gritty victory in the Grade 1 Vanderbilt by hosting a party for a small gathering of family and close friends on Saturday evening, trainer Bill Mott on Sunday was back at the barn where he reported the good news that the reigning Sprint champion had come out of the race “looking great” and in tip-top shape.  Although winning a race on his birthday for yet another year was a hot topic after Elite Power ran down Gunite in the final strides of the Vanderbilt to register his eighth consecutive victory, Mott said he does not believe that phenomena deflected attention from where it truly belonged.     “I had a lot of people comment on his performance yesterday,” Mott said. “As for me, I thought it was super. When the track is muddy there is a track bias, you see horses in the slop turn for home and they just keep going. You don’t run them down. And that horse on the front (Gunite) looked like he was handling it pretty good. His record shows that he handles it well.” :: Visit the Saratoga Handicapping Store for Past Performances, Clocker Reports, Picks, Betting Strategies, and more. Not only was Elite Power’s victory visually impressive, it was perhaps even more so from a statistical standpoint. His final time of 1:09.22 seconds over the sealed/sloppy track earned him a 108 Beyer Speed Figure, easily the highest of his career and eight points better than the number he received for winning the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Sprint nearly nine months earlier. "He didn’t just blow by him yesterday like in some of his previous wins, when you’d see him turn for home and he just goes “whoosh” and runs away from the field pretty easily,” Mott said. “He had to run that other horse down. And maybe that horse is just better than he has been in the past and is peaking now. And maybe it would have been a little different on a fast racetrack. I don’t know. What I do know is that it showed he could battle, which he really didn’t have to do in most of the races during this streak.” Mott said he felt fortunate to even have Elite Power back in training this season, a decision that wasn’t made by his owner, Juddmonte, until many weeks after the Breeders’ Cup. “You’re taking some risk when you bring those horses back," Mott said. "You don’t want to win a Breeders’ Cup and tarnish their record. They (Juddmonte) kind of wanted my seal of approval he could go another year and naturally I kind of encouraged them a little bit to bring him back. The one thing in my favor was the Saudi Cup, because the ownership was over there.” Elite Power opened his 2023 campaign with one of those “whoosh 'em” kind of efforts, a 3 1/4-length victory over Gunite in the Group 3 Riyadh Dirt Sprint. Mott said the Grade 1 Forego here on August 26 would likely be next for Elite Power in a race the Hall-of-Fame trainer won last year with Cody’s Wish. “I haven’t talked to the owners about it yet, but the Forego would be next for me,” Mott said. “After that I’m not sure. There’s a chance we could go straight to the Breeders’ Cup from there.”    Gunite also received a 108 Beyer Figure in defeat in the Vanderbilt, matching the number he received for winning the Aristides at Churchill Downs in his previous start. He, too, came out of the race in good shape, according to trainer Steve Asmussen, and appears headed for yet another confrontation with Elite Power in the Forego. “I love the horse,” Asmussen said. “He’s obviously a very special horse, we’re fortunate to have him, and I expect him to even run better in the Forego. I love him at seven-eighths of a mile. I really do. Nothing but congratulations to Elite Power. It’s obvious who he is, but there’s no reason for us to shy away.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.