Escape Clause taking scenic route to Ogden Phipps Stakes

The 5-year-old mare Escape Clause punched her ticket to the Grade 1, $750,000 Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 8 at Belmont Park with a strong workout Monday morning.

And what an unusual ticket it is.

Sometime Saturday morning, Don Schnell, who trains and co-owns Escape Clause, will load the mare onto a horse trailer on the backstretch at Canterbury Park. Escape Clause once was a tricky shipper, but Schnell has eased the mare’s travel anxiety by attending to her every need, and he trusts nobody but himself to haul his horse. Somewhere around Toledo, Ohio, Schnell and his precious cargo will stop for the night at a so-called mare motel, where a bedded stall for a horse and a spot to park the vehicle with sleeping quarters Schnell drives can be rented for the night.

Schnell wants no part of New York traffic jams and plans to arrive Sunday evening at Belmont, his second trip to the storied racecourse. Schnell counted Jack Van Berg as a friend and traveled to see the Van Berg-trained Alysheba get whipped by Bet Twice in the 1987 Belmont Stakes.

This is no vanity journey. Escape Clause, a Manitoba-bred by a sire you’ve never heard of, Going Commando, made some noise shipping from Turf Paradise in Arizona to several Southern California stakes this past fall and winter, winning the Grade 3 La Canada on Jan. 12. She’s a better horse now than then. Escape Clause missed beating the accomplished filly Midnight Bisou (also expected for the Phipps) by a nose in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom on April 14, her most recent start, and since then has been thriving at Canterbury.

“It’s been raining just about every day, so her works are spread out a little farther, but she gets long gallops and good gallops and thrives off them,” Schnell said.

Jockey Dean Butler earned Schnell’s praise for expertly handling Escape Clause in her Monday work, during which Escape Clause and her company spied another horse about 15 lengths ahead and passed that horse in midstretch.

“At the sixteenth pole, Escape Clause really took off. We actually went six furlongs but worked her to the seven-eighths pole. It was a tremendous work for her,” said Schnell.

That’s it for workouts before the Phipps. Escape Clause will have “a few good gallops at Belmont, and she’ll be ready,” her trainer said. And this time, Schnell is going to Belmont to see his own horse race on the big day.