Fair Grounds: Solitary Ranger, Poker Player target separate stakes in Kentucky

A pair of 3-year-olds who trained all winter at Fair Grounds before shipping out to finish one-two last Saturday in the Battaglia Memorial Stakes at Turfway Park will go next in separate races in Kentucky, trainer Wayne Catalano said Wednesday from Gulfstream Park in Florida.

Solitary Ranger led all the way to finish clear of a sustained late run by his stablemate, Poker Player, in the Battaglia, a 1 1/16-mile Polytrack race at Turfway in northern Kentucky. The Battaglia is a prep for the annual Turfway showcase, the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes on March 22.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

Catalano indicated Solitary Ranger, owned by Susan Moulton, is not a serious candidate for the Kentucky Derby, although the colt might well wind up competing for Derby points (50 to the winner) in the Spiral.

“We’ll either go back to Turfway or maybe in the grass race on opening day at Keeneland,” the April 4 Transylvania, said Catalano. “Whatever we do, I think the mile and a quarter [in the Derby] is probably too much for him.”

Conversely, owners Gary and Mary West “would love to go to the Derby,” he said. Poker Player, a stretch-runner owned by the Wests, most likely will run at Keeneland in the April 12 Blue Grass, which offers 100 Derby points to the winner.

Catalano said the foundation the colts got in their training at Fair Grounds this winter was “good enough to get us where we are now, even though the weather was pretty bad there in New Orleans. I do like where we are with both of them now.”

Both colts returned to training Wednesday morning with easy jogs at Keeneland, said Catalano.