Fever keeps Musket Man from Jockey Club Gold Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Derek Ryan had to scrap plans of running Metropolitan Handicap runner-up Musket Man in Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park after the colt spiked a temperature Saturday at Monmouth Park, forcing him to miss a workout. Ryan said Eibar Coa had driven down to Monmouth from New York to work the colt.

Ryan said Monday that Musket Man’s temperature was back to normal but that he would now be pointed to the $300,000 Monmouth Cup on Oct. 9.

“Maybe the racing gods just want me to run in the race at Monmouth,” Ryan said. “It’s not a bad alternative. Hopefully, I can get a good, positive race out of him and go from there. I had planned to run him on Saturday. He loves Belmont, he broke his maiden there and ran a big race in the Met Mile to Quality Road.”

Etched, who won the Formal Gold Stakes at Monmouth on Sept. 12, also is likely for the Monmouth Cup, according to trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. Both Etched and Redding Colliery, the Lone Star Park Handicap winner, were late invitees to the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

McLaughlin said that Redding Colliery is being considered for Saturday’s Hawthorne Gold Cup.

Beldame: Life At Ten in, Devil May Care out

Devil May Care, the multiple Grade 1 winning 3-year-old filly, will not run this weekend in either the $750,000 Cotillion at Parx Racing or the Grade 1, $350,000 Beldame at Belmont, owner John Greathouse of Glencrest Farm said Monday.

Greathouse said that Devil May Care came out of her fourth-place finish to Blind Luck in the Grade 1 Alabama on Aug. 21 with an elevated liver enzyme count, and “it’s not perfect yet,” he said Monday.

“These two spots are not easy,” Greathouse said. “You’re looking at giving away a bunch of weight to some of those horses at Philly or running against some tough older fillies in New York and not being 100 percent. It’s not ideal, so we’re going to move forward and try to make the Breeders’ Cup. We’d be running off 11 weeks, which is not an impossible situation, but it’s not ideal either.”

Devil May Care worked five furlongs Saturday in company with Life At Ten in 59.95 seconds, but trainer Todd Pletcher told Greathouse “it wasn’t what he’s come to expect from her; she didn’t pick up the bit, some of what she did in the Alabama. It’s got to get itself right. If she doesn’t get to run again this year, she doesn’t get to run.”

Devil May Care won the Mother Goose and Coaching Club American Oaks after finishing 10th against the boys in the Kentucky Derby.

Pletcher said he was pleased with Life At Ten’s work Saturday and said she would run in the Beldame. Before finishing third in the Personal Ensign, Life At Ten won six consecutive races, including the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps at Belmont.

As of Monday, the only other confirmed runners for the Beldame were Miss Match, Persistently, and Unrivaled Belle.

Winchester joins crowded Hirsch

Trainer Christophe Clement confirmed Monday that Manhattan Handicap winner Winchester would run in Saturday’s Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational, a field that will likely have at least 11 runners.

Winchester is coming off a neck loss to Al Khali in the Grade 2 Bowling Green here Sept. 11, meaning he is running back in three weeks’ time.

“It’s probably a week quicker back than you’d like to run one, but that’s the way the program is written,” Clement said. “He’s never run a bad race at Belmont.”

Others expected for the Hirsch include Al Khali, Bearpath, Bourbon Bay, Interpatation, Just as Well, Paddy O’Prado, Solitaire, Strike a Deal, Telling, and Treat Gently.