Excluded from BC Mile, Tell Your Daddy moves on to Artie Schiller
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Tom Morley was frustrated not to have had the chance to run Tell Your Daddy in last weekend’s Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar. The winner of the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch at Saratoga and runner-up in the Grade 1 Keeneland Turf Mile, Tell Your Daddy was relegated to the preference list after pre-entries and did not get enough defections to make it into the body of the race.
Plan B for Tell Your Daddy is Saturday’s $150,000 Artie Schiller Stakes at Aqueduct, a listed one-mile race that came up very much like a graded race.
Still, Morley is looking forward to the opportunity to run Tell Your Daddy, a 5-year-old gelding who looks to be in career form with triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in his last three outings.
“He’s a horse that looks like he’s put it all together and is now improving as well, which is great to see,” Morley said.
On Aug. 7 at Saratoga, Tell Your Daddy finished second behind a loose-on-the-lead Flavius in the Lure Stakes. Tell Your Daddy came back to win the Bernard Baruch, against only three horses, with a front-running ride over yielding ground. He then made a belated bid to finish second behind In Love in the Keeneland Turf Mile.
Morley said jockey Junior Alvarado told him, “If I got out sooner, I would have won” the Keeneland Turf Mile.
“He got into a bit of a scrimmaging match at the eighth pole as well,” Morley said.
Friday’s forecasted rain should leave a little cut in the ground come Saturday and that should only benefit Tell Your Daddy, who breaks from post 6 under John Velazquez.
“He handles cut in the ground,” Morley said. “He did in Saratoga and it was definitely not firm ground in Keeneland either.”
Flavius has finished ahead of Tell Your Daddy twice this year, once in the Lure Stakes and then by a nose when the two were second and third behind Get Smokin in the Seek Again Stakes at Belmont in May. Flavius, trained by Chad Brown, will break from the rail under Jose Ortiz.
Rinaldi will likely try to control the pace under Luis Saez. Trainer James Bond scratched him out of last week’s Mohawk Stakes for this, in part wanting to run his New York-bred in a true two-turn race.
Bond noted that Rinaldi ran a “bang-up race” in both the Artie Schiller last year when he was beaten three-quarters of a length and in this year’s Danger’s Hour, where he beaten by that same margin. Both races were over Aqueduct’s turf at a mile.
Trainer Mark Casse sends out the uncoupled duo of Olympic Runner and March to the Arch, who finished first and third, respectively, in the Grade 2 King Edward Stakes at Woodbine in August. March to the Arch is a six-time stakes winner, twice in Grade 2 company.
Field Pass, trained by Mike Maker, is also a six-time stakes winner and just missed stealing the Grade 3 Knickerbocker last out, losing the 1 1/8-mile race at Belmont by a head to Sacred Life.
Bodecream, Breaking the Rules, En Wye Cee, and Mandate complete the field on turf. Bel Harbour and Our Last Buck are entered to run on the main track.
With 10 races on Saturday’s card, first post 11:50 a.m.