Express Train on fast track for Hollywood Gold Cup

ARCADIA, Calif. – In his 17th start, Express Train won the most prestigious race of his career in Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap. It was a victory easy to predict.

Express Train was the 11-10 favorite on the strength of consecutive wins in Grade 2 prep races in December and January. When he held off a sustained threat from Louisiana shipper Warrant to win the Big Cap by a head, Express Train showed trainer John Shirreffs that the 5-year-old horse is in peak form.

Shirreffs said on Sunday that the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita on May 30 is a springtime goal and that Express Train has benefited from a consistent pattern of races in recent months.

“He’s campaigned now,” Shirreffs said. “He’s at his prime. It’s not like he needs a break.

“He knows what to expect. You don’t have to teach him anything as opposed to a horse that’s being developed.”

Express Train has won four stakes, and seven races in his career, all for Lee and Susan Searing’s CRK Stables. Express Train had eight starts in 2021, but missed the Breeders’ Cup Classic when an issue with a hock surfaced prior to the race.

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In recent months, Express Train has rebounded rapidly after his races from a physical standpoint, Shirreffs said.

“He comes out of it like he goes in except for the fatigue factor,” Shirreffs said. “There is not a lot of wear and tear.”

Shirreffs had been slowly getting closer to a Big Cap win in recent years. Midcourt was third in the 2020 Big Cap, the veteran trainer’s seventh runner in the race. Last year, Express Train was second, leading by two lengths in the stretch before losing by a half-length to Idol.

Shirreffs won the 2005 Kentucky Derby with Giacomo and the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic with the popular mare Zenyatta. The Big Cap’s history, dating back to the track’s foundation in the 1930s, made the win with Express Train a personal milestone for Shirreffs, who is on the ballot for the Hall of Fame this year.

“It was so exciting and so pleasurable,” he said. “It’s a dream really.

“The Santa Anita Handicap is such an iconic race. It’s the marquee race here.”