Force the Pass working toward April comeback

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Grade 1 winner Force the Pass was scheduled to have his second work on the comeback trail Saturday at Palm Meadows as trainer Alan Goldberg has begun plotting a return for the 4-year-old colt.

Force the Pass won the Grade 1 Belmont Derby last July 4 before finishing third in his two subsequent starts. All eight of his career starts came in a seven-month period between February and September and netted more than $1.1 million for his owner and breeder, the Colts Neck Stables LLC of Richard Santulli.

“He ran a lot of races,” said Goldberg. “He shipped here and shipped there and didn’t really fire in his last start,” the Commonwealth Derby at Laurel Park. “He had a little issue with a foot, nothing bad, and we just turned him out on the farm in New Jersey. There wasn’t much left for 3-year-olds only anyway.

“We had him outside running around four or five hours a day, and now he’s back at Palm Meadows doing really, really well. He’s a very happy horse.”

Force the Pass, a chestnut colt by Speightstown, had his first breeze Jan. 30 at Palm Meadows, going an easy three furlongs. He will maintain a regular work schedule while being pointed to a race in early April, “either at Gulfstream or maybe even the Grade 1 at Keeneland,” said Goldberg, referring to the Maker’s 46 Mile on April 15.

“You never know when they go from 3 to 4, but I think he’s going to have a really good year,” he said.

Maragh begins rehab

Rajiv Maragh said this week via Twitter that his rehabilitation from injuries sustained in a July spill at Belmont Park was to begin Friday here in south Florida.

“Baby steps, but a big baby step,” he wrote.

Maragh sustained four fractured vertebrae, a punctured lung, and a broken rib in the accident. He had not been back long from a broken arm sustained in a spill in the Jockey Club Gold Cup in late September 2014 when he went down again.

In 12 years since coming to the United States from his native Jamaica, Maragh, 30, has won 1,673 races, including four Breeders’ Cup events.