Flap Jack set for season debut in Gotham Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Flap Jack, who won the Arlington-Washington Futurity as a maiden last September but has not run since, is scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes on March 7 at Aqueduct, trainer Jack Sisterson said Friday.

Flap Jack, a son of 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow owned by Calumet Farm, was training toward a start in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland last fall, but was not training forwardly out of his last work for the race, so the decision was made to stop on him.

After a break, Flap Jack returned to Sisterson’s care at Fair Grounds, and the colt has had six workouts including a bullet five-furlong move in 59.40 seconds on Feb. 15. He was scheduled to work Saturday and again next weekend before shipping to New York.

“We’re excited to come up there,” Sisterson said Friday by phone from New Orleans. “The horse couldn’t be doing any better. We’ll let him tell us whether he’s good enough, but the way he’s going we like him.”

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Flap Jack has made three starts, all on different surfaces. He debuted on dirt at Ellis Park, finishing fifth in an 11-horse field. He then finished second in a mile turf race before winning the Arlington-Washington Futurity on Polytrack by four lengths.

Sisterson said Flap Jack missed the break in his debut and then raced wide throughout. He also said Flap Jack may not have been fully cranked.

“We don’t train to win first time out, we like to improve with racing, and we left a lot for him to improve off of,” Sisterson said. “We ran on the grass because we wanted get a mile race into him. We thought he trained well out of that race, so we gave him a shot in the Arlington Futurity.”

Sisterson said apprentice Declan Carroll has been working Flap Jack and will ride him, if he wants to, in the Gotham.

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Nominations for the Gotham, which offers the winner 50 qualifying points to the Kentucky Derby, were to close over the weekend. Among those expected for the race include Mischevious Alex, seven-length winner of the Swale Stakes at Gulfstream; Montauk Traffic, winner of the Jimmy Winkfield; Untitled, second to Gouverneur Morris in a Tampa Bay Downs allowance; and recent maiden winners Sixto and Informative.