General Election returns from long layoff in optional claimer
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – General Election, who won the Arlington Classic and the Jefferson Cup last year at 3, returns from a long layoff in the featured sixth race Friday at Arlington.
Purchased for $450,000 at auction last November at Keeneland by Richard Duchossois’s Hill n Dale Farm, General Election started once over the winter at Fair Grounds, finishing a flat, disappointing last of nine Nov. 30 in the Woodchopper Stakes.
Trained at the time by Neil Pessin, General Election now is handled by Chris Block, Duchossois’ primary trainer. Block said General Election had been turned out sometime after his Fair Grounds flop, but he now has posted eight published workouts dating to May 16 prepping for his comeback start.
“He’s ready to go, and I’m anxious to run him and get to know him a little better,” Block said.
Trained until his sale by Kellyn Gorder, General Election won the Arlington Classic late last May over Admiral Kitten, who would annex the Grade 1 Secretariat later in the summer, but the colt, by Harlan’s Holiday, was vanned off the racetrack following a seventh-place finish in the American Derby. He returned to finish a close fifth in the Del Mar Derby and won the Jefferson Cup in September in his last race before being sold.
Friday’s sixth (post time 5:23 p.m. Central) has multiple high-end allowance conditions, is open to $100,000 claimers, is carded at 1 1/16 miles on grass, and drew eight entrants.
Also in the field is Kid Dreams, whose last Chicago-area start produced a romping victory last fall in the Hawthorne Derby, a race run over a grass course turned into a bog by torrential rain. Kid Dreams, trained by Neil Drysdale, has a fifth and a seventh in two subsequent starts.
R Great Adventure, like General Election and Kid Dreams, is a 4-year-old, but while those horses were racing in stakes, R Great Adventure was struggling in first-level allowance competition. He has come back a better horse this year, however, and has two wins and a strong closing second behind millionaire Mister Marti Gras in his three grass races this season.
General Election and Kid Dreams have the better-known names, but R Great Adventure looks like the better play in the Friday feature.