Gleaves enjoys a two-stakes week

ELMONT, N.Y. – Oh, baby, was it a good week for trainer Phil Gleaves, who on Oct. 6 won the Aspirant Stakes at Finger Lakes with Thin White Duke and on Sunday captured the Grade 3 Futurity at Belmont Park with Second of July.

The win by Second of July, his second in three weeks, earned him a spot in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, to be run Nov. 6 at Keeneland. It will be Gleaves’s fourth Breeders’ Cup starter, and his first since Mambo Meister finished fifth in the 2009 Dirt Mile.

“It’s nice to get back,” Gleaves said. “I feel very blessed and filled with gratitude.”

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Second of July – named by owner Bryon Hillard for the date of his son Reed’s birthday – has twice been overlooked by the bettors. On Sept. 20, he won his debut at 68-1 in an eight-horse field. Sunday, he was the longest price on the board at 15-1, returning $33.

“There were some highly touted individuals in his debut that led us to be an outsider, and today there were some highly touted individuals that led us to be an outsider,” Gleaves said. “But he had trained well. I had remarked to my assistant we had done everything possible with him. He’s going to run as best as he possibly can and we’ll see how it fits with this bunch, and it fit quite well.”

Thin White Duke, a New York-bred son of Dominus, won his second straight stakes when he took the Aspirant. Gleaves, who owns the horse in a partnership that includes former Daily Racing Form publisher Steven Crist, said Thin White Duke will be considered for both the $150,000 Sleepy Hollow at Belmont on Oct. 24 and the $200,000 New York Breeders’ Futurity on Oct. 26 at Finger Lakes.