Gidu has final Royal Ascot prep

ELMONT, N.Y. – The multiple stakes-winning 3-year-old Gidu worked five furlongs in 1:00.10 Sunday morning over the Belmont turf course and left Monday for a circuitous trip to England for a start at the Royal Ascot meet.

“I thought he breezed very well, went off settled, relaxed, finished up strongly,” said trainer Todd Pletcher, who had John Velazquez work the colt.

Gidu, winner of the Paradise Creek last out, shipped to Kentucky on Monday, and then on Tuesday was to travel to Indianapolis, where he was to get on a flight to London.

Gidu, a son of the great European-based stallion Frankel, is scheduled to run in the Group 1 Commonwealth, a six-furlong race that is run on a straight course on June 22.

Toinette, Rushing Fall breeze

Toinette handed Rushing Fall her first defeat when she beat her a neck in the Grade 3 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 4.

On Sunday, the two were on the same turf course for the first time since then, working out over Belmont’s turf preparing for a potential rematch in the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Oaks Invitational here on July 7.

Toinette, working by herself, went a half-mile in 48.79 seconds, getting her final quarter in 23.42 seconds.

Rushing Fall, working in company with Quidura, went a half-mile in 48.25 seconds, getting her final quarter in 23.57 seconds. Once under consideration for a trip to Royal Ascot, Rushing Fall will now simply train up to the Belmont Oaks, or she could wait for Saratoga.

Brown already has two others likely for the Belmont Oaks in Significant Form and Mighty Scarlett, second and third to La Signare in last Thursday’s Wonder Again Stakes.