Firing Line launches comeback in optional-claiming route
ARCADIA, Calif. – More than a year after he played a supporting role in the Triple Crown, Firing Line is ready for his 2016 debut in a second-level optional $62,500 claimer at Santa Anita on Saturday. Owner Arnold Zetcher and trainer Simon Callaghan are hopeful that the one-mile race will propel Firing Line into the nation’s leading races in the second half of the year.
Firing Line won the 2015 Sunland Park Derby and finished second in the Kentucky Derby before finishing a well-beaten seventh in the Preakness Stakes. Firing Line emerged from that race with a bone chip in an ankle that required surgery.
Zetcher and Callaghan have taken a patient approach to Firing Line’s comeback, hoping they have a contender for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.
“We’re trying to having him peaking at the end of the year, when the races with the more lucrative purses are run,” Callaghan said on Thursday.
Firing Line has drawn the rail in Saturday’s fourth race, which has six entrants. A win is likely to lead to a start in the $1.25 million Whitney Stakes at 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga on Aug. 6, Callaghan said. The winner of the Whitney receives a fees-paid berth to the BC Classic.
Callaghan said he has been encouraged by Firing Line’s recent workouts. Firing Line breezed a half-mile in 48 seconds last Saturday.
“His last work excited us,” Callaghan said. “We’ve not tightened the screws per se. We feel if he can run well in this, it gives us more options, one of them being the Whitney.
“A mile is a nice starting point. He’s been showing his old spark, and his last few works have been top quality.”
Firing Line’s competition on Saturday includes Kristo, a game second in an optional claimer at a mile June 10 who is likely to set the pace, and Sammy Mandeville, who was second in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in 2015 but is winless in his last 10 starts. Trainer Doug O’Neill said the $200,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 14 is a possibility again for Sammy Mandeville.
“He’s got his work cut out, but he’s doing well,” O’Neill said. “We’re thinking of the Longacres Mile. That’s a date we’ve circled on the calendar.”