Endorsed to head west for Big Cap
ARCADIA, Calif. – Endorsed, fourth in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga last August, will have his California debut in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 7, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said on Monday.
In his only start since the Travers, Endorsed won an allowance race with a $62,500 claiming option by two lengths at 1 1/16 miles at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 11.
“He won an allowance race impressively,” McLaughin said. “He’s a really nice horse that we’ve had some setbacks with, nothing major.”
The $600,000 Santa Anita Handicap is run at 1 1/4 miles and is the leading race of the winter-spring meeting for older horses on dirt.
“We’re heading that way because of the Grade 1 and the mile and a quarter,” McLaughlin said.
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Owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Racing, Endorsed has won 3 of 6 starts and earned $226,850.
Endorsed joins a Big Cap field expected to include Gift Box, the winner of the 2019 Santa Anita Handicap and the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes on Dec. 28, and Midcourt and Two Thirty Five, who were first and second in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes on Feb. 1.
Monday, Gift Box worked six furlongs in 1:13.60.
“He looked good doing it,” trainer John Sadler said.
Van Dyke suspended, Glatt fined
Jockey Drayden Van Dyke, who through Sunday was tied for fourth in the standings with 19 wins at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, has been suspended five days for causing interference in the eighth race last Friday.
The suspension covers racing days on Saturday and Sunday as well as Feb. 28-29 and March 1.
Van Dyke, 25, was cited for his ride on Hot Magistrate, who altered course early in the stretch of a one-mile turf race forcing Winds Aloft and Dance Costume to clip heels. Hot Magistrate was disqualified from seventh to last in the field of nine.
Trainer Mark Glatt has been fined $500 after Zestful showed the presence of the banned anti-inflammatory triamcinolene acetonide in a post-race taken after his win in the $100,000 Los Alamitos Special in September.
