Hennig taking his time with 102 Beyer debut winner Strike Power

There may not have been a more impressive 2-year-old debut winner in 2017 than Strike Power, who won his only start by eight lengths while earning a 102 Beyer Speed Figure at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 23. The question now is what does trainer Mark Hennig do next with the speedy son of Speightstown?

Strike Power had his first breeze since that performance here last Friday, a very easy half-mile in 50.25.

“I’m not exactly sure what we’ll do with him next, although we are not looking to run him back real quick just because of that first effort,” Hennig said after training on Monday. “We gave him an easy breeze the other day just to give him something to do, and I’ll nominate him to the Swale. Obviously he has allowance conditions if we choose to go that way instead.”

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The Grade 3 Swale will be decided at seven furlongs on Feb. 3.

Hennig said Strike Power had always trained well, but that he didn’t expect the kind of performance he got right off the bat.

“He looked like he was doing it so easily out there in his first start, although the final time obviously surprised me,” said Hennig. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a horse run a 102 the first time out, but then again not many have.”

Despite the fact that Strike Power ran only 5 1/2 furlongs in his debut, Hennig doesn’t feel the colt will have problems going longer. Hennig pointed out that Strike Power’s dam, Gold d’Oro, won at 1 1/4 miles.

“He never struck me as a speedy, speedy type,” said Hennig. “I ran him at 5 1/2 furlongs the first time because that’s the race that came up when he was ready to run.

“There’s no reason to think he won’t stretch out other than he ran a 102 Beyer going 5 1/2 furlongs the first time. We’ll take things one race at a time and if we were to run back at seven-eighths in the stakes and he handled it well, then we’d consider going farther, even trying him around two turns.”