Got Stormy looking for dry land in Poker

ELMONT, N.Y. – Nobody should be in tune to what the weather will be like Saturday at Belmont Park more than trainer Mark Casse, who is hoping conditions will be dry and the turf course firm when sending out Got Stormy against the boys in the Grade 3, $150,000 Poker.

The Poker is plan B for Got Stormy after the runner-up in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile was scratched from the Grade 1 Just a Game here last weekend just hours before the race due to a series of showers, some on the heavy side, that fell earlier in the day.

“I think the biggest factor with her is the condition of the course. She likes it hard and firm, as you can see from her form, especially a race like the Fourstardave last summer at Saratoga, when they ran three-quarters in 1:08 and a mile in 1:32,” said Casse, referring to the first of Got Stormy’s two Grade 1 wins.

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The Poker will be Got Stormy’s second start of the meet. She finished fourth after chasing four-time Grade 1 winner Rushing Fall in the Grade 3 Beaugay on June 3.

“She obviously chased a very good filly in her last with the key word being ‘chased,’ which is really not what she wants to do, but seemed our only chance to beat Rushing Fall,” said Casse. “And the track also had a little give to it that day as well if you look at the fractions of the race.”

John Velazquez will replace regular rider Tyler Gaffalione aboard Got Stormy for the one-mile Poker.

Got Stormy is one of two Grade 1 winners in the lineup along with Valid Point, a last-to-first winner of the Secretariat last summer at Arlington Park. A son of Scat Daddy trained by Chad Brown, Valid Point has started just once since, finishing 10th in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile on Oct. 5 at Keeneland.

Brown also sends out Value Proposition, a winner of three of four career starts, including a one-length allowance win at a mile here on June 3.

Dream Friend figures to have things his own way on the front end and could be dangerous off a third-place finish behind Value Proposition returning from a seven-month layoff in his 2020 debut. Dream Friend was Grade 2-placed in his only previous stakes appearance, finishing third after setting the pace into the stretch in last year’s Bernard Baruch, which was decided over soft ground at Saratoga.

Seismic Wave is another likely to move forward making his second start off an extended layoff, having finished a fast-closing fourth, beaten just a length, in the First Defence Stakes going seven furlongs on June 7.

Graded stakes winners Hawkish, Social Paranoia, and Eons complete the field. Its All Relevant is a main-track-only entrant.