Extra Anejo seeks first stakes win in deep Hanshin

A day after the 4-year-old colt Disarm had a chance to move into the upper echelon of the older horse division in the Stephen Foster Stakes, his stablemate, the 4-year-old colt Extra Anejo, can take a similar step in the $300,000 Hanshin, one of five stakes Sunday, closing day of the Churchill Downs spring meet.

Disarm made it to the Travers last August, finishing second, before going to the sidelines, while an injury cut short Extra Anejo’s 3-year-old season after a fourth-place Haskell finish in July. Both colts won comeback races this spring at Churchill.

“I am wound up, so excited to run them, just to be around them,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “They are quite impressive physicals.”

The Hanshin, a one-turn mile, is a quite impressive ungraded stakes, with seven graded stakes winners in the 11-horse field. Extra Anejo isn’t one of them, though he showed elite potential as far back as his career debut in October 2022.

“It’s an excellent field of fast horses, but I like who we’re leading over,” Asmussen said.

Extra Anejo, by Into Mischief, didn’t run for a half-year following his first start and had just put together a three-race pattern before his latest layoff. The colt sparkled returning to action May 30 in a third-level allowance, stalking the pacesetter, taking over easily in upper stretch, winning by 3 1/2 lengths, and galloping out powerfully. Extra Anejo struggles with lead changes in his workouts (Asmussen said the colt looks at the grandstand) but changed leads professionally and ran straight as a string to the wire in his comeback.

Rather than move directly from that seven-furlong race into a two-turn contest, Asmussen steps Extra Anejo up to the one-turn mile, finding a race with ample pace, which should put Extra Anejo somewhat farther back than last time.

“I think the more solid the pace, the better it’ll be for him,” Asmussen said.

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Like Extra Anejo, Cagliostro lacks a graded-stakes win but enters the Hanshin a 4-year-old whose best races should lie ahead of him. Cagliostro ran a strong race finishing second by a head to Scotland, a good colt at the time, about 13 months ago at Churchill in his lone previous one-turn mile. He exits a 1 1/16-mile comeback allowance win at Keeneland and a solid second to Highland Falls in the 1 1/8-mile Blame, but trainer Cherie DeVaux was to run Pyrenees on Saturday in the 1 1/8-mile Foster while cutting Cagliostro back in the Hanshin.

“He seems to be best at a little bit shorter,” DeVaux said.

Slower to come around than Extra Anejo, Cagliostro finished off a series of two-turn 3-year-old stakes last year similarly to his Blame, looking like a horse who would benefit from less distance. He already has benefited from the addition of blinkers, which turned him from a closer into a pace-presser.

“He’s been training really well, and since we put the blinkers on, he’s showed a different dimension being involved early,” DeVaux said.

Five-year-old Zozos makes his second start of the season. His return from a winter break came in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs, where Zozos dueled on the lead and finished a solid third going seven furlongs. Zozos, who prefers one mile, won the 2023 Hanshin at Ellis Park by open lengths and stands to step forward Sunday.

“I really don’t think he was quite ready for that race, didn’t feel like he was quite tight enough to be trying a Grade 1,” trainer Brad Cox said.

Zozos drew post 3 and figures to lead under Florent Geroux, though he could take pressure from Best Actor, who makes his first start since Steve Moger purchased him and Best Actor left the Cox barn.

Charge It, listed as the 7-2 second choice on the morning line, appears to be a 5-year-old in decline, and he was scratched from the Suburban Stakes earlier this month at Saratoga.

Frosted Grace won the Oaklawn Mile in March while making his first start for trainer Mike Maker, came back with a creditable third in the Steve Sexton Mile, and stands to pull a potentially sweet pocket trip breaking from post 2.

Tumbarumba, among the gamest horses going, clearly has the quality to contend, and a one-turn mile suits him, but he took the worst of things drawing post 1.

Injunction, Happy American, Raise Cain, and Three Technique round out the field. They’re not featherweights, either.

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