Fierceness, Mindframe could face off after weekend wins
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With important graded stakes victories accomplished by Fierceness and Mindframe over the weekend, trainer Todd Pletcher and owner Mike Repole will weigh their options for both 4-year-olds, with one being a potential meeting of the two in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Saratoga on June 7.
Pletcher said Fierceness came out of his track-record performance in Friday’s Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes in good order, as did Mindframe, who narrowly won Saturday’s Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes. Both horses were expected to arrive at Saratoga on Tuesday while plans are made.
The Met Mile seems like a certainty for Fierceness, who is 3 for 3 at Saratoga, including victories in the Jim Dandy and Travers last summer. Fierceness won the Alysheba by 1 1/2 lengths, and his final time for 1 1/16 miles was 1:40.66, eclipsing the track and stakes record of 1:41.04 set by Successful Dan in the 2012 Alysheba. It was the first start for Fierceness since he finished second to Sierra Leone in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last November.
“I thought it was a big performance. You don’t always take for granted running back in six months and breaking a track record at some place they‘ve been running at for 150 years,” Pletcher said.
When it was suggested that Fierceness could be the best horse in training, Pletcher responded, “You could certainly make that argument.”
Mindframe, the 2024 Belmont and Haskell Stakes runner-up, won his first career Grade 1 stakes, outfinishing Banishing and Nysos by a neck to win the Churchill Downs. He kicked off his 4-year-old victory with a win in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile.
“It’s what we were hoping for,” Pletcher said. “He broke sharp. We anticipated he’d get outfooted a little and just hoped he could have enough time to get there and, thankfully, he just did.”
Pletcher said the Met Mile is in play for Mindframe, but given his 2-for-2 record at Churchill, so too is the Grade 1 Stephen Foster there on June 28.
Locked, trained by Pletcher for Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, finished a disappointing fourth in the Alysheba. Pletcher felt Locked was compromised by the slow early fractions.
“He was running. They didn’t come back to him at all,” said Pletcher, who said the next race target for Locked is less defined.
Antiquarian is another 3-year-old from 2024 who made a successful comeback recently, winning an allowance going seven furlongs at Gulfstream Park. Pletcher said either the Grade 3, $250,000 Pimlico Special on May 16 in Baltimore or the Grade 3, $275,000 Blame at Churchill on May 31 are in play for Antiquarian.
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