En Wye Cee looking for clean trip in Bernard Baruch Handicap
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – L’Imperator beat En Wye Cee by 2 1/4 lengths when the two met in a third-level allowance here Aug. 4. Trip handicappers will most certainly be looking to back En Wye Cee when the two meet again in Monday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Bernard Baruch Handicap, the co-feature on the closing-day program at Saratoga.
Ridden by Jose Ortiz that day, En Wye Cee broke on top, but was taken in hand to try and work out a ground-saving trip from third. En Wye Cee got stuck with nowhere to go on the inside and then had to steady sharply in midstretch. Meanwhile, L’Imperator had smooth sailing while going four wide and got the jump on En Wye Cee and the rest, beating Ever Dangerous while En Wye Cee, when finally clear, got third.
Going into the allowance, “I thought he had a very good chance of winning,” said Todd Pletcher, trainer of En Wye Cee. “It didn’t work out.”
Monday, En Wye Cee gets a switch to Luis Saez, who will finish as this meet’s leading rider. In a compact field of five, En Wye Cee could find himself on or close to the pace in the 1 1/16-mile turf race.
“We’re not afraid to let him go to the front if there’s no other speed,” Pletcher said.
Pletcher also sends out No Word, a horse who won his debut going 1 1/16 miles here as a 2-year-old, but who is just 1 for 8 since. He did finish only a half-length behind Domestic Spending in last year’s Saratoga Derby Invitational. He came off a nine-month layoff to finish eighth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths, in a second-level allowance here Aug. 6.
“I thought he had a sneaky-bad trip, too. Was very wide the whole way, needed a race off the layoff,” Pletcher said. “He’s got some races that are good enough to be competitive in a spot like this.”
Manny Franco rides No Word from post 4.
L’Imperator was coming off a layoff of nearly a year when he won that Aug. 4 allowance going 1 1/8 miles. Trainer Chad Brown said L’Imperator came out of last year’s Grade 3 Saranac very sore and needed time off. During the respite, Brown also made the decision to have the French-bred son of Holy Roman Emperor gelded.
“We did a total reset with the horse,” Brown said. “The owners, they went along with it and they were rewarded. This is a big step up, but I like the timing of it. I wish it were a little further in distance.”
Tell Your Daddy and Dreams of Tomorrow finished second and fourth, respectively, behind Flavius in the Lure Stakes here Aug. 7. Tell Your Daddy, trained by Tom Morley, could be the speed from the rail under John Velazquez on Monday.
“We got a great draw,” Morley said. “He looks better than he’s ever looked and he’s going to have to run better than he’s ever run to win the race, but there’s a strong possibility that he’s about to do that.”
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Dreams of Tomorrow, trained by Shug McGaughey, won two straight allowances races at Belmont Park – one scheduled for turf that was run on dirt – before he finished fourth in the Lure.
“That’s when the [course] was speed-favoring,” McGaughey said. “I thought he ran okay. He came out of it really good. He had a good work on dirt and another good work on the turf. I thought it was worth taking a shot.”
With only a five-horse field, the Bernard Baruch is carded as the third race on Monday’s closing-day 12-race card.
‘Makin’ may move to turf
The New York-bred Makin My Move was an impressive 12 1/2-length winner on dirt versus restricted company here Aug. 20. But trainer John Kimmel had always intended to run the daughter of Carpe Diem on turf at some point, given she was a half-sister to three-time turf winner Gotta Go Mo.
On Friday, Kimmel had jockey Luis Saez work Makin My Move on the Oklahoma turf course, and after the filly zipped around there in 46.00 seconds, Kimmel is now convinced to try Makin My Move on turf for her next start.
With an eye toward a possible start in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint on Nov. 5 at Del Mar, Kimmel will look to either the Grade 3, $150,000 Matron on Oct. 9 at Belmont or the listed $200,000 Indian Summer on Oct. 10 at Keeneland for Makin My Move. The Indian Summer is a Win and You’re In for the BC Juvenile Turf Sprint.
Of the work, Kimmel said Saez told him Makin My Move “was floating and flying over it. He said ‘I like her better on the grass.’ ”
Kimmel said the fact the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint is run at five furlongs is attractive to him.
“I just don’t think, boys or girls, there are many horses faster than her,” Kimmel said.