Forever Young kinda, sorta, has workout

ELMONT, N.Y. - Forever Young’s training session on Sunday was billed as a workout, but what he did won’t show up on the worktab.

Forever Young had what was akin to an open gallop. He went from the quarter pole to a furlong past the wire in 43.38 seconds, according to Daily Racing Form. Yuki Araki, the assistant to trainer Yoshito Yahagi and Forever Young's regular morning rider, said he was satisfied with the way Forever Young was traveling Sunday morning. Forever Young, who typically does his warm-up on the track, instead on Sunday walked the shedrow under Araki for roughly 30 minutes before heading to the track.

“We have plenty of time to the Breeders’ Cup, we didn’t want a strong breeze this morning,” Araki said. “Maybe his motion was a little bit slower than you guys expected, the thing is I felt the pace was even. I checked the video and it looked like a normal gallop. I’m really satisfied about it.”

Araki said Forever Young will have more serious workouts over the next two weekends with the strongest being Oct. 17-18, before he flies to Kentucky on Oct. 20. Meanwhile, Araki said that he is happy with the way Forever Young has come out of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, a race he won by 3 1/4 lengths over Stars and Stripes.

“That was a tough race, I thought, and he obviously showed a good performance,” Araki said, adding with that being his first start since the Dubai World Cup in late March “maybe he’d get exhausted. But he’s a true champion, he wasn’t.”

Araki did say that he has been changing things up with Forever Young as far as taking him to different tracks on the Belmont property in the morning. In addition to utilizing the main track and the Tapeta, Araki has taken Forever Young to the training track and even the pony track, the latter also being Tapeta.

Araki noted that when Forever Young was in Dubai for the six weeks leading up to the World Cup, he could get a little bored going to the same track each day.

“We always want to change his mind, so change the track, let him a see a different view, atmosphere,” Araki said. “I think it’s going well so far.”

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